


This Sweet Madness

by Covenmouse



Series: Their Silent Reverie [1]
Category: Sailor Moon - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, mentions of non-con but non-explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-15
Updated: 2011-06-28
Packaged: 2017-10-20 10:59:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 69,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/212066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Covenmouse/pseuds/Covenmouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Besot by demons of the past, the reincarnated Shitennou find themselves torn between the memories of what was, and their new realities. They gravitate toward one another in an effort to find a stable balance as the world begins to crumble around them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Behind These Hazel Eyes

  
**ZOE**   
  
_June, 2009. Tokyo, Japan._

  
The strings quivered under her fingertips as she plucked them, each one reverberating a gentle, crisp note from the beat-up guitar propped against her chest. Turning her head to stare out the window, the girl’s fingers continued to move along the strings in a melody long since ingrained into her very bones. The tune filled the room, drowning out the beeping machinery settled beside her bed and the snores behind the curtain division, as she stared down at the parking lot below. It was filled with sunlight and cars, and it stung her eyes to stare.

There was a reserved parking spot under an oak tree outside the children’s ward which had remained empty all day.

She pressed her lips together and wet them with the tip of her tongue as a tiny blue car pulled into the lot, only to sigh as it went past the space without even a pause. Her fingers stilled mid-chord, and she slapped a hand to the strings to kill the sound. Using her free hand to card through her crimped and frizzy dirty-blonde hair, the girl forced her eyes away from the window to stare at the dull nothingness of her hospital room.

There was a dull crack as she let her head fall back against the window, and she winced at the faint pain. Her vision blurred, the acrid scent of smoke filling her nostrils. For a moment there was rushing confusion—blood and screams and a strange, loud noise like lightning strikes without the flash—and then someone said her name.

“Zoe?”

Slits of reality began to make sense once more as her eyes fluttered open to the sight of a familiar, cherub face. “Doctor Mizuno?”

Those pretty, nude lips smiled at her, but the gesture never reached Mizuno’s eyes. There was only sadness there, Zoe realized, and her stomach lurched. Her head swam again, and though she was loathe to, she closed her eyes once more. Cool fingers touched her forehead and brushed her bangs behind her ear. “You haven’t been sleeping again,” the Doctor pretended to ask.

“I try,” Zoe replied with as bright a smile as she could manage and forced her to eyes open once again. That dark gulf in Mizuno’s eyes only deepened. It was like stepping off a shelf in the ocean you hadn’t realized was there. Once more Zoe’s stomach rolled—pushing her guitar off onto the bed, the girl scrambled away and to the small bathroom across the room. She made it to the toilet in time to bang her knees sharply against the tile and catch the rim of the bowl.

The feeling of her hair being pulled back alerted Zoe to the fact that the doctor had followed her; rather than protest, the girl let herself be helped as her stomach lost what little it had been holding. When she was done she sat back and scrubbed the wet from her mouth with the back of her wrist. The simultaneous scrape of cloth against her chin and a cluck of the Doctor’s tongue reminded her of the bandages.

Mizuno stood up and took a washcloth from the nearby linen rack. The tap ran for a moment, and then the wet cloth was pressed to Zoe’s lips. She took it from the Doctor’s hands and wiped her own mouth. “Thank you,” Zoe muttered a moment later.

The sigh that Mizuno gave as she stood was soft but unmistakable; the toilet flushed and Mizuno’s flats thumped gently against the tile as she went back into the main room. Zoe pushed herself to her feet and followed, sponging the cloth against her soiled bandage as she did. “On the bed, please, Zoe,” Dr. Mizuno waved a hand towards the mattress as she lingered over a tray of supplies she’d apparently brought with her, “those bandages need to be changed.”

Zoe did as she told, though she made a face, “Can’t I brush my teeth first?”

“Of course.”

The girl did an about-face and moved back into the bathroom. How long ago had her toothbrush taken up permanent residence on one hospital sink or another? She’d forgotten. Smiling at the little pink instrument, Zoe picked it up and slathered on a bit of paste from the tube to her right. Her eyes went to the mirror as she began to brush, looking automatically for some small view of the doctor in the opposite room.

As she watched, Mizuno stopped working with the tray and moved towards the bed. Curiosity overcame her, and Zoe leaned slightly to the left so that she had a better view. Mizuno’s fingers traced the edges of her guitar in a slow, curious movement. The gesture was so soft, so… perfect. Zoe blushed, and her eyes snapped back to her own reflection.

It wasn’t much to look at, she knew. For a moment her vision blurred again, and a pair of emerald eyes glared into her own. Honey-dew hair, the kind she could only dream of, framed her head like a halo, and her skin was miraculously free of the paint-splatter freckles she’d been cursed with. Her head reeled, and she smacked her hip sharply against the edge of the counter.

Zoe cursed around her toothbrush; her eyes cleared, and she glared down at the sink for a long moment before Mizuno’s voice once again broke into her lapse. “Are you ready?”

Quickly finishing with her tooth brush, Zoe spat into the sink and rinsed her mouth and brush out. She replaced the toothbrush into its holder and grabbed a towel to wipe her mouth on when her reflection once again caught her eye.

“Doctor Mizuno?” She asked.

“Yes?” The Doctor appeared in the mirror behind her, brows lifted in question. For once Zoe’s attention didn’t automatically transfer to the woman.

Instead, she asked in a light voice, “Do people’s eyes change colour?”

“That depends,” Mizuno answered with an indulgent smile, “in babies, definitely. Most colour change afterward is a result of disease or aging. Why do you ask?”

“Because my eyes were brown yesterday.”

“And they were brown a minute ago,” Mizuno confirmed with a frown. The woman moved into the bathroom, and Zoe let herself be turned to face the Doctor. Once again the touch of Mizuno’s fingers upon her skin made her shiver, and she prayed that the woman wouldn’t notice. Her chin was tipped up toward the light, and Mizuno’s frown deepened. “Hazel…”

“Is this bad?” Zoe whispered.

“Probably not,” Mizuno shook her head, “It’s likely that they’ve been Hazel and we just didn’t notice.”

Zoe noted with a small spike of fear that Mizuno didn’t sound at all confident in that answer. Instead of arguing, Zoe nodded and smiled, “Ok. If you say so, Dr. Mizuno.”

“Ami,” the Doctor replied, “Remember?” The woman waved one hand towards the bedroom, and grabbed the knob of the bathroom door, “Now scoot. Your bandages need changing, and then you’re going down to the cafeteria for dinner. No arguments.”

“Yes, Doctor Ami.”

Dinner was a dreary affair; the rest of the inmates, as Zoe called them, droned or danced about the long bench tables alternately eating their food, playing with it, and, in one exceptional case, using it as makeup. Zoe couldn’t help but wonder if she should worry that the sight of mashed potato lipstick was becoming “normal.”

Staring down at her cold plate of “American Night” cuisine, Zoe felt her stomach roll again and began to mentally calculate the distance to the nearest restroom. Whomever had designed the hospital had apparently taken into account that there were those among them which couldn’t take a meal without puking—even those of them who weren’t bulimic, and so she felt reasonably sure that she could reach the nearest one before any untoward accidents occurred. And if she couldn’t, she figured that she could at least reach the lap of a rather unpleasant R.N. sitting at the staff tables across the room.

Zoe plucked idly at the fresh bandages on her arms, trying not to be bothered at the faint red stains that had already leaked to the edges. Most of the cuts had been stitched, but those which hadn’t been deep enough to require it were aggravated each time the bandages were changed. She knew it wasn’t anything to worry about and yet the sight was mesmerizing.

A sudden impulse overtook her, and the girl lifted her arm to her nose, sniffing at the leaking wound. The smell of death and carnage clogged her nostrils, and a masculine voice shouted a name inside her ear. As always, she had no idea what name the man was saying, only that it was a name. Her name? No, that wasn’t right.

Her head reeled, and she squeezed her eyes shut only to be barraged by the fuzzy image of a forest. There was smoke everywhere, people screaming, and sunlight tried once again to blind her. Her mind’s eye dipped and staggered as “she” stood up; her vision swam as that mental eye scanned the area around her. There was a green hint of trees and grass, a blur of brown tree trunks, all hazed with the thick, unnatural black smoke that choked the air. Brilliant orange flames were scattered about the meadow, and in the midst of them a girl.

She staggered forward as fear—or was that a hand?—gripped her shirt. Something wet and warm oozed around her fingers, and she looked down at blood-stained silk.

A hand grabbed her wrist, and Zoe bit back a hiss of pain and surprise. Her attacker let go immediately, but the chair beside her was pulled from the table, the boy plopping down into it. There was only a drop of concern within the sea of his mischievous blue eyes. “That hurt, asshole,” she muttered at him and picked up her fork to stab at the cold glob of potatoes.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” Jun shrugged and leaned his elbows upon his knees. “Did you miss me?”

“Miss you?” Zoe scoffed and shoved an overloaded forkful into her mouth. As she chewed, she replied, “Why would I do that?”

The boy didn’t even wrinkle his nose in disgust. Unsure of whether that won him points in her eyes or lost them, she reached for her carton of milk and worked the top open as she swallowed. Jun’s eyes followed her every move—as always. She tried to ignore the grip of paranoia that followed wherever he appeared. “Well you gotta have friends in here, right?” The question was meant to be rhetorical, apparently, for he blundered right on, “And after everything you said last time, you’re going to need them this time.”

“I don’t regret anything.” Zoe snorted. “And if that bitch thinks I should, then tell her she’ll have to make me.”

“Mm, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Jun sing-songed faintly. He tilted his head in such a way that he reminded Zoe of an overgrown puppy dog. It didn’t help that those strange, blonde curls of his fell just so across his left eye. The thought of her Labrador puppy at home sent a strange pang to her heart, and she’d gulped down half the carton before she’d realized it.

Dragging the back of her hand across her lips, Zoe snickered, “Don’t tell me that Jun-Jun is afraid.”

The grin that Jun had been wearing disappeared in a fell swoop. The angelic curls that floated about his head suddenly didn’t seem quite so cute, and there was a darkness to his slanted blue eyes which made her skin crawl. “I’m not afraid of her,” he growled, “I’m just smart. You would be, too, if you knew what was good for you.”

“Could you be any more cliché?” Zoe snapped against her own fear. “Really, Jun, you’re starting to sound like a cheesy thriller film. Maybe pick up a book once in awhile, or watch a comedy!”

“At least I admit my issues,” Jun replied and pushed his chair away as he stood up. It screeched against the tile, and a few of the nurses looked up, but no one said anything, and the other inmates didn’t care. “Go break another mirror, bitch.”

“It was a plate, asshole!” Zoe shouted as the boy retreated to the cafeteria door. He paused long enough to kick a trash can on his way out and managed to slam the double doors behind him. A few of the nurses continued to give her dirty looks, and Zoe faced forward again to stare at the grey mess of what passed for food.

Baring Jun’s display, the rest of Zoe’s return to the facility was celebrated with the appropriate lack of enthusiasm; when she paused by the game room after eating, the others didn’t even glance in her direction. There were a few new faces, and some which were missing, but much of the room remained just as she’d left it.

Zoe turned from the doorway and stopped short when faced with a wall of brittle red hair that framed a pair of angry, slanted eyes. The girl hissed like a mad thing, and Zoe jerked backward as four lines of pain rose upon her cheek.

A heavy hand caught her wrist before it slammed into Bachiko’s face. Bachiko screeched as she was drug away by two interns who had flown to the rescue. For all that the girl fought, her eyes did not leave Zoe’s. Under the fluorescent light, the girl’s beady pupils seemed to glow a metallic blue. She began to laugh in a high-pitched cackle that filled the corridors and remained long after Zoe heard the double doors of the ward slam shut.

That hand hadn’t left her wrist, but it took the man attached to it shaking her arm before Zoe acknowledged him. “You’re hurting me,” she muttered.

“I’m sorry,” he replied in English.

Surprised, Zoe turned to face him as he let her go. The man was Japanese, through and through, but his accent had been flawless. Zoe frowned and crossed her arms over her thin chest; he made her fell funny.

“I can speak Japanese just fine. And understand it, too.”

“My apologies,” the man replied with a soft smile, “I just assumed you’d prefer English.”

“Well I don’t.” Zoe glanced the man over, noting with faint disgust that the jacket over his otherwise decent shirt and slack combo was a putrid shade of green. Her nose wrinkled, and she favoured him with her most derisive snort. “Why’d you stop me? She deserved it.”

“I don’t doubt it,” he replied and gave a light chuckle which didn’t quite make her want to hit him. Quite. “But you shouldn’t hit girls, even when they deserve it.”

“Excuse me?” Zoe squeaked. She scrubbed the back of her hand across her cheek and scowled.

“Mamoru-chan,” that oh-so-familiar voice interrupted.

They both turned as Dr. Mizuno joined them. Zoe returned the Doctor’s smile—though she once more noted the sadness in those beautiful eyes—only to drop it as Mizuno favoured this “Mamoru” with the same expression, only the sadness was gone. Mizuno’s hand settled upon the sleeve of that disgusting jacket.

“Mamoru-chan,” she repeated, “I see you’ve met Miss Sullivan.”

Zoe wrapped her arms more tightly about her person and glared at his suddenly contrite expression. “Oh! Um… Sullivan-san, I apolog—”

“Forget it.” Only Mizuno’s presence kept her from spitting the words. The man winced.

Dr. Mizuno turned back to Zoe, and the girl forced herself to relax. “Zoe, I’m heading out to lunch, now, but when I get back we’ll have time for a real chat. Let’s say one o’clock, okay?”

Zoe nodded because she had to. The Doctor gave her another beautiful, fake smile, and then she and “Mamoru-chan” headed towards the door.

“Your jacket is fucking awful!” Zoe screamed at his back, then turned and fled.

Three days into her stay, Zoe sighed at the window and stared into the car-filled parking lot beyond. She wondered if they’d ever let her out of here again; probably not. A glance down at her arms informed her that the jagged cuts tearing across her skin were very real. The stitches were still in the worst of them, red and angry, but they no longer bled. Mizuno must have caught her looking, because the woman leaned a little further over her desk and asked, “Would you like to talk about it, Zoe?”

The girl shook her head, and the doctor sighed. “We’re going to have to, you know,” Mizuno informed her. “I understand if you’re not ready, but as your friend I do want to know what is bothering you, Zoe.”

“You mean you want to know why it happened again,” Zoe translated, “Why all your hard work went to pot.”

“Not my hard work,” Mizuno sighed. “Zoe, this isn’t about me. You know that.”

Zoe laughed, turning to look at the Doctor, “It’s funny, isn’t it? Most people get the ‘it isn’t all about you’ speech.” When Dr. Mizuno didn’t even smile, Zoe’s faded, and she looked back at the window.

“You’re tired,” Mizuno guessed as she stood up. Coming out from behind her desk, Mizuno crossed the short length of the room to the window and stood staring out it, “You’re still not sleeping, and you’re confused… and angry to be back here, am I right?”

“I guess,” Zoe shrugged.

“It’s okay to be angry,” Mizuno turned and leaned her back against the window.

“I’m not angry.”

“Zoe…”

“I don’t know, okay?” Zoe huffed and drew her legs up onto the arm chair. For once, Mizuno didn’t “tsk” at feet on the furniture, and Zoe dared to look at the woman’s face. She tore her eyes from it a second later and focused instead on the clock. One minute to go. “I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember why you’re angry,” Mizuno tried to clarify.

“I don’t remember cutting myself,” Zoe snapped. Her eyes jerked back to Mizuno’s face, and she swallowed. “I promise. I just woke up in the hospital, okay?”

The clock buzzed before Mizuno could make a response, and Zoe hopped up off the chair. “I gotta pee,” she blurted out before the Doctor could stop her and raced for the door.

There was something around her neck, tightening until all she could make were the faintest choking sounds. Tiny pricks of pain dug into the back of her neck, ripping in and spilling hot blood down her back. Fire cracked in her ears, but her toes—her toes were frozen. Zoe’s eyes snapped open as a hand slapped her back.

Jerking awake, the girl yelped, and the stack of checkers at her elbow toppled over. “Jun!” she glared up at the grinning blonde and willed her heart to stop racing, “The fuck are you doing?”

He shrugged in reply and helped himself to the chair across from her. Zoe had never understood why Jun insisted on bothering her, but no matter how many times she told him off he just kept coming back. Something about that made her skin crawl. “You looked like you were sleeping.”

“I was,” Zoe growled and rubbed the red spot on her cheek from where she’d been leaning against the window. “Only you would wake an insomniac.”

“You needed waking,” he shrugged again and began to pick up the checkers, putting them into position upon the board.

“I’m not playing you.”

“I didn’t ask you to,” Jun huffed and frowned. Zoe waited for the explosion, but this time there wasn’t one. Instead, Jun just began to align each round disk perfectly into its appropriate square so that it touched each side in equal amount. She watched this for a few minutes until her heels began to jump in place.

“What do you want?” Zoe asked and lightly kicked his ankle.

“Hey!” Jun cast a baleful eye upon her, and his bottom lip jutted into a pout. As always, those curls gave him an angelic look which belied the hellion she knew existed inside him. He looked back down at the board and leaned one elbow on the table, his cheek in his palm. “It isn’t smart for you to sleep in public like that. Bachiko isn’t happy with you.”

“I told you, I don’t care. Besides, it isn’t as if we can lock our rooms.”

“Well… yeah.” Jun frowned, and Zoe had to wonder if that had ever occurred to him before. “Look, I just don’t want to see you hurt, ok?”

Zoe rolled her eyes and reached a hand out to shove the checkers off the table. His head jerked up, and he glared at her with a snarl half-formed upon his lips. “I’m not your friend.”

The snarl faded in and out of his expression as they glared at each other. She could feel his breath upon her lips and knew that if she struck him in this moment it wouldn’t end well. Another face, strikingly similar and yet utterly foreign, juxtaposed across Jun’s; there was a sudden impression of a blue-lined uniform, a cavern, and the distant roll of thunder. Laughter cackled in her ears, and then Jun stood up.

“Y’know, you’re not going to like being alone,” the boy warned before he stomped off. Zoe snorted and wondered if they’d ever have a conversation which didn’t end in the same manner.

She was pushing another blob of something that was, supposedly, edible around her cafeteria-style plate when someone came up behind her. The presence made the hair on the back of her neck stand straight, and when he spoke, she knew the voice. “Sullivan-san.”

Twisting about in her chair, Zoe made certain to glare daggers at the man behind her. She hated that damn jacket. “Chiba.”

Mamoru’s eyebrows rose at the animosity in her voice, but he didn’t miss a single beat as he gestured to the seat beside her. “May I join you?”

The girl glanced him over again, wrinkled her nose once more at the jacket, and then returned to staring at her so-called food. “Whatever.”

Zoe didn’t look as the chair was pulled out or when the man sat down in it. He put something on the table and scooted it over to her. She jabbed a fork into the mystery-meat “hamburger” patty, raised the entire lump of it, and watched as it slid down the spokes to fall back into its juices with a wet thump. Meat sauce dappled across her face, and she didn’t care.

The man remained seated beside her for a long time—she wasn’t sure how long, exactly, but it felt like forever. He got up when that damnably familiar voice sounded behind them, and then left her alone with the object at her elbow; curiosity forced her to look at it.

The pink-wrapped bento box sat on the cafeteria table as if it belonged to another world all together. She stared at the happy, sunshine-like object and, for a moment, imagined herself drop-kicking it across the cafeteria. Her stomach growled, and she cast a wary eye at the “meal” sitting before her. Oh it was nutritious, no doubt… but it tasted like re-heated cardboard.

Zoe stood and gathered her tray and, after a moment of hesitation, hid the bento box underneath it. She walked calmly to the trash can and dumped her food, put away the tray, and then snuck the boxed lunch to her room. It was homemade, she soon discovered, and delicious.

Life soon returned to what passed for normal, Zoe found much to her disgust. Each morning was breakfast, followed by “art therapy”--which seemed to include far more finger painting than strictly necessary, a subsequent bath for those inmates which cared about their appearance, study time for those deemed well enough to be bothered with it, lunch, a session with Mizuno, and then an evening of loitering about the halls until medication, dinner, and bed. After awhile, Zoe wasn’t sure how long she’d been back. It could have been a few days, or it could have been eternity.

That day felt like a Thursday, she decided, and was too lazy to ask a nurse to validate it. Instead she scratched at the smear of black paint on her cheek and moved a white pawn on the board in front of her. The empty chair across the table mocked her with its presence, and, after a few minutes had ticked by, she reached across and moved one of the black pawns.

She glanced up at the others in the game room, eyes drifting over each one until she found a familiar set of blonde curls. The boy they belonged to looked up after a moment, as if he sensed the eyes upon him. Jun’s eyes met hers, and he scowled. He turned a page in his magazine and returned to staring at it.

Zoe tried to pretend that she wasn’t pouting as she moved another of her white pieces.

“…the white cake. I was very surprised; I’d thought she’d want chocolate!”

Her head jerked up as Dr. Mizuno’s voice drifted in from the hall beyond. Zoe turned to face the open double doors just in time to see the woman come past with that ugly green jacket and its owner in tow. The pair drifted to a halt just past the doors, and Zoe could hear the man laughing.

“I did too,” he replied with an easy shrug and stuffed his hands into his pocket, “But that’s what she’s been going on about. Mako-chan hadn’t started on it yet, thankfully.”

Mizuno’s cell phone beeped, and the woman jumped. She fished it out of the pocket of her jacket and glanced at the message. “I’m sorry, Mamoru-chan, it seems I’m about to be late.”

“Go,” he shook his head to wave it off. As Mizuno began to head back the way they’d come, he reached one hand out of his pocket to stop her, “Oh! You are still coming by for dinner tonight?”

Mizuno turned to walk backward as she nodded, “Of course; I’ll be there. See you!”

Mamoru raised a hand in a farewell gesture and watched as Mizuno disappeared down the hall. From her place in the game room Zoe scowled at the man. A second later, he turned and caught her staring. For a moment, they watched one another, and then Mamoru nodded politely and turned to leave. The sunlight streaming through the game room window caught a glint upon his finger, and Zoe frowned.

Darting from her chair, Zoe ignored the clatter of chess pieces behind her. One of the nurses on duty shouted something, and her target turned to look just as she caught up with him. The girl reached out and snatched Mamoru’s hand as another fell upon her shoulder.

“Young lady,” the nurse warned with a scowl.

“It’s okay,” Mamoru interjected. The nurse started to open her mouth to protest, then, to Zoe’s amazement, snapped it shut again. Though the look the woman favoured Zoe with promised a lecture to come, the woman backed off and returned to her desk. Zoe stared at the hand she was grasping.

“You’re married.”

“Yes,” the man replied. He didn’t seem at all bothered by her behavior—she had to award him some minor points for that. Even so, they were canceled out by the ring on his finger.

Zoe dropped the hand and crossed her arms. She had to tilt her head all the way back to look at him, but she hoped her glare made up for what her height lacked in imitation. “Why are you here all the time?”

Mamoru’s eyebrows rose a little, and he stuffed that hand back into his pants pocket. “It’s a public place, is it not?”

Unable to come up with a response, Zoe puffed her cheeks out and scuffed her heel on the tile. Her shoes made a delightful squeaky noise, and the nurse glared at her. The girl huffed and turned away to stomp back into the game room. She noticed that Mamoru followed her to the door, but said nothing and returned to her forgotten game of chess. The pieces were laying about the table, and she bent to pick them up.

A god-awful green blob joined her in her peripheral vision, and Zoe pretended not to notice until all the pieces had been once again set upon the board. She stared at the board as Mamoru reset the game and then sat down. He looked up at her after a moment and gestured to the seat she’d abandoned earlier. Zoe glanced between him and the chair, and then took it as he put forward his first black piece. She took the white set; she was always white.

Mamoru left after three games, which he won two of. Zoe was certain that he’d let her win the last, but she didn’t say anything—it felt good to be beaten, and just as good to have someone consider her feelings, even if they were wrong. At least he did it out of kindness.

When he had left, Zoe reset the chess board for the next players; it wasn’t required of them, but she thought it a nice thing to do. A shadow fell across the board as she was finishing and Zoe sighed. “I don’t want to play anymore, Jun.”

“Who was that?” Bachiko demanded.

Zoe’s head jerked up as the wall of red hair flopped into the other chair. Bachiko lifted a hand to twist a finger into her fried locks, and her head tilted to the left. The girl never wore anything but hospital gowns anymore, and Zoe could see just how thin she had become.

“None of your business,” Zoe growled and put the last chess piece into place. She stood up and headed for the door. Quick as a snake, Bachiko’s hand darted out and grabbed Zoe’s wrist. The nails Bachiko wasn’t supposed to keep dug bloody circles into Zoe’s skin. She hissed and tried to jerk her arm away.

“I want him,” Bachiko leaned forward, eyes wide as the stared up at Zoe.

Purple silk clung to Bachiko’s lean form; her hair hung soft and loose about her body, pouring like a river down to the ground. Bats squeaked above them, and the smell of sulfur was heavy in the air. Zoe blinked rapidly, but the vision wouldn’t clear. Once again she tried to shake her arm free only to have Bachiko’s grip hold tigher. “Let me go.”

“I want him, and you’ll deliver him to me,” Bachiko giggled, “I command it.”

Zoe twisted sharply, and Bachiko fell forward onto the floor. The girl’s nails drug down Zoe’s arm, catching upon a suture as they did. Zoe bit back a yelp and clasped her free hand over the bloody wound. “I don’t take orders from you anymore!”

Laughing upon the floor, Bachiko hit the tile with a fist, and then her hair flew back as she looked up sharply. “You’ll always take orders from me,” the girl purred as the nurse came to see what was wrong. “Always, always, always. You promised.”

An intern caught Zoe’s arm as she backed away. The girl barely noticed as her arm was inspected and wrapped in cloth. She was taken to a white room where the wound was stitched shut again, and then bundled off to bed.

“You and Bachiko-san had a bit of a disagreement yesterday,” Dr. Mizuno asked from behind her desk. Zoe jerked back into attention at the other girl’s name being dropped from Mizuno’s lips. She glanced at her, sitting behind her desk; Mizuno always looked so professional, so kind. Zoe loved that image, even if it were a false one. “Do you want to tell me what it was about?”

“A boy,” Zoe said and wondered why.

“Jun-san?” the Doctor asked with a knowing smile. A sick twist came to Zoe’s stomach, and she scowled without thinking about it. Mizuno seemed surprised and wrote something down her notebook, “I’ll take that as a no.”

“It doesn’t matter. She’s fucking psycho.”

“Language,” Mizuno muttered and continued to write.

“She is!” Zoe protested and shifted in her chair so that she could see Mizuno more easily. Curled into the seat, Zoe leaned her cheek on the old leather backing and ran one finger along the length of the stitches still imbedded into her arm. “She thinks she can control me.”

Mizuno looked up at that and leaned forward on her desk with a nod. “Bachiko-san can be like that with everyone. She does seem to have a certain… soft spot for yourself and Jun-san. You three used to be close, did you not?”

“That was before she went insane,” Zoe protested. After a moment she corrected herself, “Insane-er.”

“More insane,” Mizuno responded and then winced, “Not that she is. I mean, that isn’t the technical— we don’t call people that in here.”

“No, you just dress it up with pretty words,” Zoe replied, “But that’s what we are, isn’t it? That’s why I keep getting thrown in here.” Her eyes went back down to the sutures she was toying with. Mizuno pursed her lips.

“Zoe, you keep getting ‘thrown’ into these institutions because you keep hurting yourself.”

They stared at one another, and then Zoe climbed out of the chair. Mizuno stood up to stop her, but Zoe shouldered her way past and out the door. She made a point of slamming the door behind her before she took off running.

Down one hall, a shout from an orderly, and then Zoe slammed into something about her size which was running in the opposite direction. They both fell to the floor, and Jun glared murder at her as they scrambled to their feet. Another orderly shouted, and Zoe saw one which had been chasing Jun. “Come on,” Jun tugged at her sleeve and took off down another hallway. Zoe followed a second later, and they rounded the next corner together.

The sound of feet behind them was distant but getting closer when Zoe spotted an open broom closet. She skidded to a halt, and grabbed Jun by the shirt to pull him in after her. She got the door shut just before the orderlies turned the corner behind them. Both teens held their breath as they heard the orderlies pass by and then let out a mutual sigh of relief.

Zoe sank down to the ground, tucked between the wall and a bucket of grimy mop water, and drew her knees to her chest as she panted. Across from her, Jun sank into a similar position and clasped his fingers behind his neck. When they’d caught their breath, the lifted his head enough to look at her he asked, “What were you running from?”

“Doctor,” she shrugged, “you?”

“Bachiko.”

The girl nodded and silence resumed for a long moment. The light from under the door was just enough to see by, once her eyes had adjusted. Zoe inspected the boy as best she could without touching him—it didn’t seem like he was wounded, at least. “What does she want this time,” she asked to break the silence.

“She’s just being a pain,” Jun snorted. He sat up straight again and stared at her, “Why are you running away from your sessions? Or did you finally realize that they don’t help?”

“I never said it didn’t help.”

“Your arms did,” Jun smirked.

Zoe’s mouth shut with a snap, and she scrambled to her feet, splashing mop water over the both of them in her haste. Jun grunted a note of protest, and his fingers lifted to catch at the hem of her shirt, “Wait, wait!”

“Why should I?” Zoe tugged her shirt away.

“Fine!” Jun muttered and dropped her shirt. “Run away! Leave me alone. You always do.”

Zoe’s hand clenched upon the doorknob, but she did not open it. The girl stared at the lit outline of the door and chewed upon her lip. A sense of déjà vu danced upon her skin, and her fingers twitched with the urge to brush herself off. She shuddered instead and left the door alone to shove her friend to the side.

Squeezing herself between him and the wall, Zoe once again held her knees to her chest and listened to him breathe in the darkness. The dripping of water echoed in the glacial caverns, but neither child felt the cold. “Y’know,” Zoe’s whisper echoed, “Sometimes, I’m scared of her too.”

The next day, Jun sat beside her during their art therapy. They shared paints as they wasted paper, scrawling meaningless, blobby doodles that represented nothing. Every so often the doctor on duty would pass by and mutter something about how wonderful the work was. Zoe didn’t believe him, and she doubted Jun did either.

“Pass me the green,” Jun muttered at her shoulder. He didn’t look up as she handed him the jar, instead taking it with a grunt of thanks and dipping one paint-slathered pinkie into the mixture. With a mind-boggling amount of care, he touched the freshly green digit to his paper and coloured in the eyes of a very blobish likeness of a person.

Zoe leaned in a little to stare of his shoulder. “Who’s that?”

“You.”

The girl frowned as Jun sat up straight to stare at his handiwork. “That isn’t me,” Zoe protested as she stared at the honey hair and brilliant green eyes. She shook her head, waiting for the image to correct itself, but it never did. “That isn’t me.”

“Yes it is,” Jun frowned at her.

“My eyes are hazel.”

“Zoe,” Dr. Mizuno appeared before their table with a beaming morning smile, “Jun-san. Good morning to you. I thought I’d come see what you two were painting.”

As Mizuno leaned in to take Jun’s paper, Zoe darted her hand out and smacked it down in the middle of the offending page. The pink on her hands immediately blurred out those damning eyes, but not the wicked blue pair now boring into her own. “Zoe!” Mizuno gasped.

While Mizuno demanded that she apologize to Jun, Zoe’s mouth moved silently as she wracked her brain for a thought. Nothing came until she jerked her gaze away to Dr. Mizuno’s shocked face. “Are you married?”

“Zoe, you’re not turning this conversa—”

“Are you?”

Mizuno’s jaw snapped shut with an audible click. They stared at one another for a long moment before the woman seemed to decide something. “You know that I’m not.”

Zoe’s chair toppled over when she stood up. Her hand stuck to Jun’s desecrated artwork, and she fought to peel it off and then slap it down onto the table. “Sorry, Jun,” she muttered without looking at him and ran for her room.

One week later saw her sitting upon her bed, guitar held in her lap and strumming chords in a nonsensical fashion. It was noise to everyone who passed, but so far as Zoe was concerned, it helped her to think, and that was all that mattered.

There was a rap at her door. Zoe glanced at the open entryway and forced herself to frown. “Aren’t you worried what people will think, seeing a patient like this?”

“I’m visiting a friend,” Mamoru replied as he walked in.

“A friend who is a young a girl,” Zoe shifted herself on the bed so that she was sitting cross legged on the comforter. If he noticed that she was still wearing her pajamas, he didn’t seem to care. The girl let her guitar rest across her legs and leaned upon the wood of it. “Whom you never met before entering this hospital.”

“Worse has happened,” Mamoru countered again, “Besides, you remind me of someone.”

“Let me guess, a sister?” Zoe snorted and rolled her eyes.

“More like a brother,” the man muttered as he watched her. Zoe’s skin crawled again, and her heart beat against her chest, trying to break free. A wild array of shouting voices filled her head, and she frowned. In an attempt to clear the noise, Zoe shook her head and picked the guitar up again.

Her fingers picked the chords automatically, setting into her accustomed rhythm. It was that same song which kept repeating in her head, day in and day out. Her headache began to ebb, and soon the girl was able to open eyes she hadn’t realized she’d closed. Mamoru was staring at her.

“Where did you learn that?”

“My step-dad taught me,” she replied, looking down at the strings as she continued to pluck away. “He’s a big guitar freak. Likes electric, though.”

“Not that,” Mamoru frowned. He waited until Zoe looked up again and then nodded to her guitar, “The song.”

Her fingers stopped moving, and the last note drifted upon the air and died. “You know this song,” she asked, breathless.

“Mamoru?” The soft voice from the door startled both of them, and they looked up to see Doctor Mizuno standing in the doorway staring at them. Mamoru stood up abruptly, and for all his talk about it being a ‘normal’ visit, Zoe couldn’t help but note that he looked as flustered as she felt.

“Ami-chan,” he took a few steps towards her, “Just who I wanted to see.”

“But—”

“I need to talk to you about something important,” he insisted. Turning only slightly, he gave Zoe a smile which didn’t reach his eyes. “It was nice to talk to you again, Sullivan-san.”

Zoe stared at him as he left, the Doctor trailing behind. Putting her guitar aside, Zoe slipped off the bed and out the door after them. Neither adult seemed to realize that they were being followed; they conferred in low voices as Mamoru walked the woman to her own office, all the while his hand wrapped about her wrist.

A dark feeling stirred in Zoe’s belly as she watched that, and the girl’s hands balled into fists. Wild thoughts screamed in her head even as she pressed herself to a corner lest she be seen as Mamoru turned, once, to check the corridor behind him. Then the man slid into the office after Mizuno and shut the door.

She stared at the door from the end of the hall, wanting to scream, to cry, to break it open. The fire burned in her veins as she heard a cry echo down the hall from the Doctor’s office. Zoe launched herself around the corner only to come up short as something caught the back of her shirt.

Tripped over her own feet, Zoe crashed onto the tile floor in a painful heap, then rolled onto her back to see that familiar wall of red standing over her. Bachiko’s eyes were for the doorway down the hall, and not the girl she’d grabbed. “Did you bring me my present?” The girl stepped forward onto Zoe’s foot.

Zoe yelped as Bachiko tumbled down upon her and lifted her arms to shove the girl off. “I told you, I don’t take orders from you!”

Bachiko’s eyes snapped into focus, and the girl hissed into Zoe’s ear. “You’re mine! You’ve always been mine!” Surprisingly strong hands grabbed for Zoe’s wrists as they wrestled, Bachiko shifting to straddle Zoe’s waist. “I made you, you’ll never leave me!”

“You’re loony!” Zoe accused, grunting as she struggled to regain some leverage.

The mad girl pressed forward, pinning Zoe’s wrists to either side of her head. Zoe could smell Bachiko’s breath as she leaned in, still putrid with that day’s noon meal. “The Prince is mine. All mine, like you. All my little ducklings gathered by my feet. Say you love me.”

Zoe snarled into the girl’s face, and Bachiko’s eyes narrowed. “Say it!” She shrieked, letting go of one wrist to grab Zoe’s hair. Zoe reached forward to do the same even as Bachiko gave her head a sharp crack against the floor. Her vision filled with stars.

“Say it!” the girl shrieked again, and Zoe vaguely heard a distant scream of another sort.

“I HATE YOU,” Zoe screamed and forced her fingers to clutch around whatever was closest to hand. They dug into something soft and thin, and Bachiko howled in pain. Foreign hands were tugging at them now, but Zoe’s eyes focused on the red mass of hair above her. They tumbled together, and her back was to the air. “Get out of my head! Get out of my head!”

The hands became more insistent, pulling her off of Bachiko and down the hallway. Zoe wasn’t aware of who or what had her, only that they were taking her away from her rightful kill. She fought and screamed and hit, but a familiar door soon closed in her face, cutting off the sight of Bachiko clasping her hands to her bleeding ear. But the door couldn’t stop the screaming.

Zoe stared at her feet as her fingers dug into the old leather chair. There was still blood underneath her fingernails but she didn’t care. Between the roar that filled her head and the clucking of the doctor at her desk, Zoe didn’t care about much of anything. A single glance at Mizuno told Zoe that the woman was still lecturing. Her jaw twitched.

“Shut up.”

The doctor stopped on command, her eyes widening for a moment before that same, placid smiles slipped back into place. “Zoe—”

“Just shut the fuck up!” Zoe shrieked as she launched herself to her feet. Rounding on the woman, Zoe hands hit the desk with enough force to make the tiny doctor jump in her seat. “Stop looking at me like that!”

“I don’t know what—”

“Yes, you do!” Her voice broke, and Zoe sniffed. One hand lifted to swipe against her nose, and the girl swallowed a few choice words. In a hoarse voice she repeated, “Yes, you do.”

“Zoe,” Dr. Mizuno stated and leaned forward. Her hand reached out to the girl, but Zoe jerked away and paced towards the window. “I don’t mean to. But after this business with Bachiko-san…”

“You’ve always looked at me like that,” Zoe glared out the window. The blue car was parked in its spot under the tree; she wished it weren’t, “ever since we met. Like an ugly puppy; like I can’t be fixed. I’m sick of it.”

There was a squeak of leather behind her as Mizuno sat back in her chair, but no footsteps to indicate that the woman had gotten up. Zoe could have seen the woman reflected in the mirror, but she chose to look at the sunlight beyond. After a long silence, Mizuno spoke up, “Would you like another doctor?”

“I WANT TO GO HOME!” Zoe roared as she twirled to face Dr. Mizuno. There was no sadness now, only empty eyes and frowning lips. Zoe began to tremble. “I want to see my mother! I want my brother and my bed and my LIFE.”

Mizuno’s lips parted to reply, but Zoe glared her into silence. “No. No you don’t get to talk. Not anymore—that’s all you do! Talk, talk, talk and you pretend to listen but you never really hear! I bet you don’t believe a word I’m saying—a word I’ve ever said!”

Zoe watched as Mizuno crossed her arms over her chest and settled into her chair. When no denial came, the girl shook her head and backed away until the cold glass of the window pressed against her back. Once again, her eyes fell to her shoes, and she laughed. “All I ever wanted was for someone to listen, is that so much? Someone who doesn’t look at me like I’m crazy!”

Her hands rose to her hair, fingers knotting into the unmanageable mess; she felt like ripping it out. “They never listen, they don’t want to listen. They just want to live their lives without me, as if I never existed—and that’s fine, that’s fine, that’s fine. They deserve it after everything I’ve done.”

“You didn’t do anything,” Mizuno whispered.

“I BETRAYED HIM,” Zoe screamed, and her fists pulled. She stumbled away from the window and sobbed. The chair squeaked, and this time there were footsteps. Two hands touched her arms, and Zoe gave a wordless cry. Jerking away from the offered comfort, the girl shoved out at the frail chest before her.

Backing away blindly, Zoe shook her head and heaved another dry sob.

“Zoe,” Mizuno called softly. “Zoe, shh… shh…”

She looked up as those hands reached for her, and the sadness in the eyes she saw pulled a groan of agony from deep within her. “Why don’t you hate me?” Zoe choked and fell forward into open arms. They sank to the floor together, weeping child and crooning, confused adult.


	2. It Doesn't Matter

**Jun**   
_June, 2009._

  
Hospitals were supposed to be under surveillance. The patients were to be accounted for at all times; their families trusted that they weren't allowed to come to any harm. Not allowed to disappear.

A claw-tipped hand slapped against the wall beside his head and Bachiko's grin filled Jun's vision. He stood motionless as the girl pressed her lips to his. She groped at his shirt and he let her--fingers digging between his ribs and over his chest hard enough to leave red marks down his skin for hours to come.

Staring into the burnt hair that frizzed about the girl's head like a blood-drenched halo, Jun let his body go numb and mind blank. He pretended not to hear the laughter in his ears, the screams.

Those cruel fingers tugged at the waistband of his jeans and Jun's eyes snapped into focus. With a guttural cry he pushed her away. The girl stumbled back a step, scowling. Skin cracked against his cheek and he hissed at the marks her nails left behind. Bachiko's fingers flew again to his belt loops; he caught her hands and tried to pull them away.

She was stronger than she looked. The reed-thin body pressed to his was nothing but sinew and bone, yet she managed to wrestle his arms back to the wall and press her hungry lips to his throat. The girl nipped and bit as much as she kissed and Jun squirmed beneath her. He lapsed back into non-motion, eyes squeezing shut as she held herself against him.

Snickering voices cut at his ears, making them burn. Jun's cheeks coloured in kind and he forced his eyes back open to stare at the outline of the janitor's closet. Why was there never one around when you needed there to be? Bachiko's thigh forced itself between his legs.

A spark lit itself in his belly and gave a single note of protest. Bachiko's lips stopped, though he already knew there'd be yet another tell-tale mark to cover in the morning, and the girl growled against his skin. In the darkness he thought her eyes shone red.

His entire body shuddered and Jun raised a foot to kick as hard as he could against the closet door. A second later it opened, a wide-eyed intern on the other side. Jun gave one last push against the startled girl and ran full tilt from the closet. The shouts behind him fell on deaf ears as he fled down the corridor, ducking around surprised physicians, nurses and patients alike.

Two corners later, a thin body slammed into his and they met the floor. Jun hissed at the impact and then scrambled to his feet. If he got caught because of…

His startled eyes landed on the girl he'd knocked into. The image swam a little, like it always did, but he reached out and grabbed Zoe's arm. “Come on!” The interns were already on their way, and Jun didn't waste any more time. He let her go as he started to run; the direction didn't matter so long as it was “away.” The footsteps at his heels told him that she'd followed.

Around another corner into a hall that was, blessedly, empty. It wouldn't stay that way for long, he knew, and Jun prayed to reach the end of the corridor before the interns could catch up. There was a dark spot in the hall, an open broom closet. Shoes squeaked on the tile behind him, and then a hand clutched his shirt and tugged him into the closet. His back met the wall hard and Zoe shut the door quickly behind them.

What was it with chicks and closets?

Jun dug his fingers into his curly, pale hair and wormed his way down the wall to the floor. Beyond the door, charging footsteps hurtled past their hideaway, and then dwindled further down the hall. In the darkness he shuddered and pulled his knees to his chest. His forehead pressed against his knees and his fingers twined behind his neck as he fought for breath.

Every inch of his body shivered and tingled; he could still feel her fingers there, clutching at him.

Biting back a sudden wave of nausea, Jun forced his eyes up to stare at the girl sitting across from him between the door and a bucket of rancid mop water. “What were you running from?” he asked, watching as her hair shifted its form. It never did seem to understand what colour it wanted to be--dirty, russet blonde one moment, and golden waves the next. The darkness snickered at him from behind a roll of paper towels.

“Doctor,” Zoe shrugged, “You?”

“Bachiko,” he managed without puking on their shoes. That was enough of a miracle for him to almost believe that there was a god… almost. Jun took a deep breath and willed his body to stop shaking. When he felt he had himself under control, he leaned back a little and let his half-lidded eyes rest upon Zoe. In the dim light the closet offered, he could just make out her hands once again playing with the sutures that held her wrists together.

His vision blurred and light began to swim about her figure; he really wished it would stop doing that. Zoe jerked, as if being pulled from a deep sleep, and those haunting green eyes settled on him again. They raked over his body like Bachiko's claws and pierced a lot deeper. “What did she want this time?”

“She's just being a pain,” Jun snorted and bit his lip to retain the laughter that wanted to follow. He stared instead at the swirling lights about her form. They meant something, the darkness told him, and he'd know what it was if he stopped being crazy. That was laughable, coming from a figment of his imagination; Jun wanted to cry. “Why are you running away from your sessions? Or did you finally realize that they don't help?”

Zoe's lips tightened and her eyes narrowed; all around her the air turned icy blue. A deep, ice-filled cavern juxtaposed over the closet and Jun fought to keep from shivering. “I never said it didn't help.”

“Your arms did.” The words tumbled unbidden from his mouth and behind a stalactite the darkness crowed in glee.

In a second, Zoe had scrambled to her feet and reached out into the air. Her fingers closed around a doorknob and the closet came crashing back around his ears in time for Jun to reach forward and grab her shirt tail. “Wait, wait!”

“Why should I?” Zoe twisted out of his grasp with a snarl. Her fingers curled around the knob, but it didn't turn and Jun hated the lumps caught in his throat.

“Fine,” he managed and let his hand drop back to his side. He tore his eyes from her and twisted his fingers back into his unruly curls. The lumps migrated down into his stomach to roll upon the churning waves of nausea. “Run away! Leave me alone. You always do.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the door to open. He waited for it to shut, and knew that when it did he wouldn't be alone. Bachiko always found him; it was only a matter of time. She'd be pissed, too, the way he acted.

The boy jumped when two hands pushed firmly against his shoulder. Zoe just rolled her eyes and squeezed her bony self between his body and the door. Jun let her settle against his side, and squeezed his knees more tightly against his chest. Beside him, Zoe did the same and he could hear the stalactites dripping water further away in the cavern.

“Y'know,” Zoe's whisper echoed against the cave walls, “Sometimes, I'm scared of her too.”

His stomach turned over entirely and a great sob broke through the dam. Jun hid his face against his knees and pretended that the hand on his back was comforting.

Art “class” was his favorite time of the day. They let him have art supplies in his room, but there was nothing like a few dedicated hours where he was allowed to sit around and do nothing but paint. Even if half his work was ruined by splatter from the others. There was one drawback to their art period, and she was sitting near one of the windows with purple paint up to her elbows by the time that he arrived that morning.

Jun ducked his head and quickly looked for somewhere else to sit. A space near Zoe had been left unoccupied, he noticed, and dashed across the room to claim it before Chihako could. The girl scrunched her nose at him, flounced her matted and ribbon-knotted hair, and went to sit next to a large “boned” boy that Jun didn't yet know. He stuck his tongue out at her and caught Zoe staring at him.

“What?”

Zoe shook her head in reply and rolled her eyes. Leaning back over the table, the girl picked up a few pots of paint, one by one, and put each in a line between the two of them. Jun grinned at that and when the pad of paper being passed around came to him, he ripped them each a sheet before passing it on.

He grinned at Zoe who rolled her eyes again, but this time she did it with a smile. Inspired, Jun bent to his piece of paper and dipped one finger into a pot of paint. The therapist that worked with them was talking; he didn't listen.

Though they were only given a limited selection of colours, Jun had long since learned to mix any hue he wanted out of them. The tables were covered in paper because of this, and by the time that his painting was approaching completion there were already a thousand little spots of colour decorating the sheet around him. There was just one that he was missing…

“Pass me the green,” he muttered to the girl at his side, who promptly did and then peered over his shoulder.

“Who's that?” Zoe asked.

Jun frowned and glanced at her. “You.”

Zoe had a strange look on her face, he thought. The colour that began to swirl off of her was pink, which he found appropriate though he couldn't place why. “My eyes are hazel,” she argued.

Staring into her emerald green eyes, Jun wasn't sure what to say. He was cut off by a blue paisley skirt that stopped before their table. They both looked up and Zoe's doctor smiled. “Zoe! Jun-san. Good morning to you. I thought I'd come see what you two were painting.”

Dr. Mizuno's eyes had gone toward the painting Jun had been working on and he couldn't help but straighten his shoulders with a little pride. He picked the page up as she reached for it, prepared to hand it over, when a pink-slathered palm slapped down on the middle of the paper.

“Zoe!” Mizuno gasped.

Staring--glaring--at his “friend,” Jun watched as the girl's mouth bobbed for air. Her fingers curled into a fist, further smearing the wet ruins of her own face. Red flashed across Jun's vision and it took him a moment to realize that the colour was radiating from him. The revelation did nothing to alleviate his anger, especially when he realized that Zoe's attention had returned to her Doctor. They were talking about something, but he couldn't fathom what.

Zoe stood up and shook the drying painting from her hand. She spared him a single glance as she muttered a half-hearted apology and ran for the door. Jun snarled and grabbed up the painting. It was ruined, anyway, so he balled it up and threw it across the room. A paint can smashed into his forehead a second later, and then the screaming started.

He stared into the mirror and picked the green from his skin. It would have been faster to use soap and a wash cloth, but both remained in place on the counter top. Behind him, his roommate knocked uselessly at the bathroom door.

The permanent darkness under his eyes only drew out their brilliant colour, icy and cold under the crown of blonde eyelashes. He tugged in irritation at one cork-screw curl which insisted upon hanging in his face, and then carded his fingers through the thick lot of it. Huffing, the boy buried his other hand alongside the first and turned from the sink to stomp the unfulfilling two paces available in the bathroom and plop down upon the toilet seat.

Voices tugged at his ears, incessant and unintelligible, while the knocking of his roommate became one with his heartbeat. He squeezed his eyes shut and pretended not to feel the claws of demons ripping at the legs of his jeans.

“Jun,” one voice called louder than the rest. It didn't sound like his roommate and when he lifted his head to stare at the door, the knocking had stopped. His elbows cramped in protest to his moving them and his back shared their complaints. How long had he been sitting there?

The doorknob twisted and caught upon the lock. It jiggled once again and then a faint tapping began on the other side of the door. Tap, drag, tap, drag… the noise went on as a giggle sounded. “Jun,” the voice sing-songed. “Let me in.”

“Don't do it,” said the soap dish.

“You should listen to her,” instructed his roommate's toothbrush. “You know what she's like.”

“Exactly!” the bathtub faucet squeaked and he frowned because he hadn't touched it, but the water was turning on anyway. Was he supposed to take a bath? “Not letting her in is going to cause a lot more problems. Just go along with it.”

“Jun,” Bachiko called once more.

The boy frowned and began to unbutton his shirt. “I don't wanna,” he complained and tried to stand up. A dizziness over took him and the boy sat back down.

“That doesn't matter.”

And it didn't. He nodded to himself and when the last button had been dealt with, he let the cloth slip from his shoulders to the toilet seat behind him. He leaned forward, then, his elbows finding a familiar home upon his knees, and stared at the baseboards. The tapping at the door stopped and the knob shook again.

Jun drug himself to his feet and shuffled the mile to the door. His fingers twitched as he reached for the knob. There was a barrier between his fingertips and the knob. Though he couldn't see it, it was there, and his fingertips pressed against it. Out of his reach the knob twisted and ground against the lock, but the bolt remained firm.

“I can't open it,” he muttered to the accusing air.

“Come wash yourself,” hissed the steaming water. Ignoring the clatter of the doorknob, Jun finished stripping and grabbed the washcloth from the countertop. He lowered himself into the scalding water and scrubbed his skin raw.

There was a man watching Zoe. He had been watching Zoe for the past few days--Jun saw him around noon, standing in the corridor outside the game room, staring at the girl inside. He wore a green jacket.

Jun stood by the nurse's station and watched the man stare at the oblivious girl. He hadn't spoken to Zoe in two days, but he still didn't like this man.

One of the nurses stopped to ask the man a question. Jun couldn't hear them, but the answer could be read upon the man's lips: “Doctor Mizuno.” The nurse nodded and continued on her way; the man returned to staring.

“You should go talk to him,” a voice stated from behind him.

“I don't talk to perverts,” Jun grumbled.

The nurse behind him startled and dropped the papers she'd been filing. “Excuse me?” She asked as she bent to gather them.

“I said I don't talk to perverts,” Jun repeated and glanced down at one of the sheets that had landed over the tip of his shoe. A thin, fragile-looking hand plucked it off a moment later and the nurse climbed to her feet. The disorganized stack of papers was clutched to her breast like a life line. She must have been new.

“I'm sorry,” the woman smiled as her eyebrows sank into down-turned crescents, “What pervert?”

“The man,” Jun waved his hand in the direction of the green jacket only to find that it was no longer present. His eyes darted to where Zoe was frozen beside an immobile chess board--alone. Shoulders sinking, Jun ignored the confused queries of the nurse and took three steps toward the game room.

Zoe's head snapped up in an instant and green eyes met his own. An arctic wind stung his back.

Jun turned upon his heel and marched back to his room. Schoolwork was better than her company, he reminded himself. A faint pat, pat, pat of slippered feet on tile informed him that he was being followed.

“He's wonderful,” Bachiko gushed. She was splayed spread-eagle across his mattress, her hair flowing behind her like the leakage from a gunshot, and staring at his ceiling. Jun turned another page in the history book and snorted.

“He is wonderful,” Bachiko warned and turned her head to face him.

“Sure,” Jun shrugged and flipped close the textbook. The loud bang of it made him jump even as he tucked his hands behind his neck. Underneath him, the chair gave a protesting squeak when he leaned it back onto its hind legs.

“Regal and charming,” Bachiko sighed. She grinned at the ceiling like a lover and it wasn't hard to imagine what she saw there. “Like a prince should be.”

“Too bad he likes blondes.”

The girl's eyes glowed crimson in the sunset light. They narrowed into bloody slits and she hissed, “He's mine! She'll give him to me!”

“I'm pretty sure Zoe is through with you,” he muttered and kicked the desk he was sitting at.

“She belongs to me,” Bachiko grinned, “She'll give him. She always does.”

Jun's fingers knotted into fists and his nails scraped bloody lines into his skin. “What do you need her for anyway? She doesn't listen to you.”

“Shut up!” The girl ordered and sat up in one swift movement. She climbed off the bed and advanced on the desk. Jun winced with each stomped step and bit his cheek when her fingers clamped on either side of his face.

“She's mine!” Bachiko hissed, “You're all mine. Just like he will be.”

The lips that clamped over his own kept him from answering. A shout from the doorway and then Bachiko was pulled away. “You aren't supposed to be in here!” The orderly making rounds frowned at Bachiko. He turned a shameful glare at Jun and then carted the giggling girl out the door. She blew a kiss before the door shut.

Left alone, he shivered in the dark.

“We still haven't talked about Zoe,” the gravel-voiced giant stated from the other side of the poker table. Jun stared at his cards, grabbed a handful of chips, and cast them to the middle of the table.

Two more silent bets were made and then Doctor Shibuya put his cards down. Jun waited for the man to announce that he was folding, but the words never came. “Jun…”

“She's back. Big whoop.” Jun shrugged.

“You used to talk about her all the time,” Shibuya folded his arms upon the edge of the table. “She's been back for two weeks. I know you two have been speaking.”

“So?” Jun leaned back in his seat to stare at the man properly. He kept his cards close so that the Doctor couldn't see them. “Just like it was before, right? I thought the point of this shit was to deal with new issues, not dreg up the past.”

“But it is new, isn't it?” Shibuya persisted. He raised his hands to his chin and rested his scraggly maw upon them. The big, bushy caterpillars poised above his eyes rose a few inches towards a hairline that had long since run away, screaming. “She was supposed to be better, and then she comes back to us. You two were very close before she left, but you haven't even commented on her now.”

Jun chewed his bottom lip, “That's not new, it's different.”

“How is it different?”

“Well, one is the addition of something to a pre-existing object or, in this case, situation and the other is something altogether unlike anything that was before,” Jun tipped his head to one side, and half his vision swam with chunky blonde curls. He debated pushing his hair out of the way and found he lacked the energy to do so; it didn't matter.

Shibuya smiled softly and nodded. The chubby fingers that had long since glued a wedding band to his left hand tapped together; he always tapped them when he was frustrated. “So, then, how is this situation different?”

The boy heaved a sigh and debated kicking the table. That would only get him a reprimand or, worse, a hurt look, and so he turned his head to stare out the window instead. From the view of the Doctor's office, he could just make out a nearby park with children playing on the jungle gym. He missed parks. “It doesn't matter.”

“You say that a lot,” Shibuya noted, not for the first time, and reached into the middle of the table to stack the bet chips. Jun's hand slapped onto his cards to keep the man from peeking. “I wonder what does.”

The question rang in his ears through afternoon schoolwork and dinner, and mocked him from the barely visible disk of the moon peeking around the top of his bedroom window. His roommate snored softly across the room. The door cracked open and Jun squeezed his eyes shut against the light. The back of his eyelids burned orange as the flashlight beam racked across his face. The orderly shut the door and continued down the hall. Jun counted the steps until he couldn't hear them anymore and opened his eyes.

Twisting about in his bed so that he could see the moon in its full glory, Jun let his temple rest against the freezing glass. Supposedly there was a rabbit on the moon; Jun only saw a devil. He shuddered at the demon's yellow grin and sat up. The floor was as cold as the window pane, but Jun ignored it. He concentrated upon putting one silent foot before the other and crossed the room to the door.

Cracking it open without the hinges giving a betraying squeak was much harder than it looked. The orderly turned the corner down the next hall as he watched and then Jun squeezed his body through the tiny gap he'd left between the door and jamb. He pulled it shut behind him, heard the bolt slide in, and left in the direction the orderly had come from.

  
“Invisible. I'm invisible.” Jun lipped the words as he passed the silent doors on either side of the hallway. Over and over again he said it, all the while staring the blinking red eye positioned in the corner of the hall ceiling. He passed under it and through an archway that once had held a pair of double doors. Turning right, Jun found that he was heading for the hospital exit--that made sense.

At the end of this hall there was strumming.

Jun stopped once he realized that the noise wasn't in his head. Lips pausing halfway between one reiteration of “invisible,” he tilted his head as a dog might and listened. The strumming was music, and he thought it might be a guitar. It drifted from the next corridor over, and though it lead away from his intended target, Jun felt himself pulled towards the sound.

The music turned into a tune and gradually became a song. There was no singing but the notes struck an understanding deep within his bones. By the time that he found the room it was coming from, he was shaking. Jun forced his fingers to close around the door knob and it turned readily beneath his hand. A jarring strum interrupted the melody and then there was a 'clap' as a hand slapped over the strings of the guitar to still them. Zoe sat on her bed, cross-legged and thin in her over-sized nightshirt, with the instrument in her lap and moonlight streaming through the window.

“Get in before they see you,” she said after a moment. He stepped into the room and shut the door. Zoe put the guitar down beside her on the bed and scooted back toward the pillows. With just a glance at her sleeping roommate, Jun crossed the room to his friend's bed and climbed onto the foot of it. They stared at one another and Zoe plucked at the cuffs of her pajama pants.

“What do you--” She began to ask.

“There's a monster on the moon.”

Zoe's eyebrows rose to her hairline. After another, tedious silence, the girl leaned to the side and twisted her head up so that she could see the moon hanging above. “Nope, looks like cheese to me.”

“There is!” He frowned and clutched his ankles. “It's always been there, just no one has looked for it.”

“Is Bachiko telling you her stories again?” Zoe sighed and sat up straight once more. Raising her hand, the girl carded it through her frizzy nest of hair. It turned to pure gold in an instant and then the colour faded back to dust.

Fingers tightening upon his ankle, Jun stared down at his white knuckles. “Why does everyone assume that everything I say is somehow connected to Bachiko?”

“Because it is.” Zoe snorted. She leaned back into her pillows and crossed her arms over her chest. “You follow her every order like a love-sick puppy. Always have.”

“I don't love her.”

Silence drifted between them until Zoe sighed. “There isn't a monster on the moon, Jun. It's just the moon. It's made of rock, lacks an atmosphere, and circles the Earth in eternal orbit. People don't live there.”

“Maybe they did,” Jun replied softly. “A long time ago.”

The girl scoffed and shook her head. “Alright, I know you Japanese like your mythology but there is no princess on the moon, okay? Much less a monster.”

“How can you be sure?” Jun's head jerked up to stare at his 'friend' and felt his ankle begin to bleed. “How do you know it's so innocent? Just because it looks that way doesn't mean it can't destroy us!”

Any and all humour that had been in Zoe's features died in that moment. Her lips settled into a thin line and the breath she drew in, then let go, was very slow. “Jun. You do realize it's moments like this that keep you locked up, yeah?”

“Because you know so much about how to get out of here, huh?”

“At least I've been outside in the past two years,” Zoe retorted.

Jun smirked, “And we all know how that ended up.” One hand shot out and caught Zoe by her wrist, tugging her forward. He lifted the arm up so that she could see it; the sutures were highlighted perfectly by the bloody moonlight. “Yeah. You're a picture of mental health.”

Zoe ripped her arm from his grasp and shoved him. He fell off the bed with a thump and lay there, frozen, when her roommate turned over in the bed across the room. They glared at each other, each still as a rock, until the other girl settled herself and her even breathing resumed. Jun's face split open in a grin he couldn't seem to keep hidden.

“Touch a nerve, Zoe?”

“Get out.”

“Gladly.” Jun pushed himself off the floor and went for the door.

He opened it without caring about the squeaking hinges, and then slammed it behind him. “I'm invisible,” chanted down the hall and the orderly passed him without comment.

Three days later it occurred to Jun that there was something odd about that. He first thought of it at breakfast when he was facing down an overweight boy who thought that everyone else's breakfast belonged to him. Certainly the ability to be invisible would have saved him his bacon and a black eye. Afterward he went to art period and spent the entire time drawing crescent moons over his paper. Zoe snorted at it, so he drew a line of red across her wrist.

Shibuya said that he looked like a panda. Jun would have rather been invisible than sit on that couch a moment longer.

“Can't we play?” He asked and looked to the table where they sat during poker games. The doctor shook his head and leaned forward on his elbows.

“We haven't been having good talks, Jun. I need you to concentrate on this.”

“What's the point?” Jun lifted a brow and let his hair obscure his eyes once again. “I'm never getting out of here.”

“I'm sorry you feel that way,” Shibuya replied. The man's fingers tapped together. “You know that line of thinking isn't helping.”

“Yeah, and these talks aren't doing much either, are they?” Jun scoffed. “Just admit it. I'm fucked up. I'm not learning how to deal.” Light burst around Shibuya's form and the boy squeezed his eyes shut. The blaze of red leaked under his eyelids to try and blind him. “Getting angry isn't how you deal with kids, you know.”

“I'm not angry,” the Doctor sighed, “I'm just disappointed.”

“Liar.”

Jun opened his eyes in time to see those great meaty fists knotting into ham-sized balls. His breakfast encounter flashed before his eyes and then the Doctor relaxed. The red swirling did not stop, however, and Jun couldn't help but feel that he'd been right. Red meant anger.

“Jun,” Shibuya paused on the word and waited until the boy looked him in the eye, “We've spoken about this. I know that being here is hard for you, but it is the best place. If we work together to get these… thoughts of your settled, then you can go on out-patient leave and return to your family. Right now, I just can't let you go in good conscience.”

“Fine.” Jun climbed to his feet as the timer on Shibuya's desk went off. He didn't respond when the Doctor called after him, and shut the door soundlessly behind him. Shibuya didn't follow.

“I'm invisible,” he told the air and headed for the front of the hospital.

The children at the playground were demons. Jun sat on the park bench and watched them swarm the monkey bars and slip one-by-one down the clown's nose. It was buried to its head and the crabs ate its flesh, but still it was smiling. He could relate.

“You're not supposed to be out here,” said the wind.

It swirled into the figure of a woman in a long skirt. She sat down beside him. Jun twisted his fingers together and leaned his elbows upon his knees. “They're not real,” he explained. As one, the child-demons turned, like a flock of rabid birds, and pulled a passing jogger to the ground. They were eating him and no one cared. The sand was churned into red-brown muck beneath their brilliantly coloured tennis shoes and sandals; he could hear the mothers nearby, laughing.

“Am I?” the wind-woman asked. She didn't care, either.

“Sometimes,” he shrugged and stood up. 'Slowly,' he reminded himself as one of the child-demons raised its head. The creature stared at him for a moment and he stilled. The wind touched his shoulder--he ignored it. Only when the child-demon bent back to the feast did he stand straight and begin to walk off. The wind followed.

When they were a safe distance from the massacre, and the carnage once again sounded like laughing children, Jun continued, “Sometimes you aren't. It's hard to tell which is which.”

“I imagine so,” the wind agreed. “We should go back.”

“Why?” Jun stopped and turned to face the wind. Her short, dark hair blew lightly in the breeze and Jun thought that maybe she was real this time… not that it mattered. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and tilted his head to one side as he waited for the so-called answer.

“Because I can help you,” Dr. Ami Mizuno replied with a faint smile. “I promise.”

“You're not my doctor.”

“I can be,” she offered her hand out, “Come back with me.”

The wind swept through them and took her away for a moment, but then she was back and her skirt was shorter than before. Ice blue ribbons waved upon the wind. Ice… Jun shook his head and the image cleared. Mizuno was just a doctor, he reminded himself, and snorted. “You can't even help Zoe.”

Light pulsed around her body and he had to close his eyes. One hand rose to rub the bridge of his nose, “Just leave me alone.” Fingers grabbed for his sleeve, but he jerked away and moved into the grass of the park.

  
“Jun-san!” Mizuno called after him and he broke into a run.

His flight carried him to the edge of the park. Though his legs begged him to stop and his chest screamed for air, Jun pushed his way through the crowded streets of Tokyo without a care for those who got in his way.

Demons wove their way in and out of the crowd, jeering and pulling at his arms and legs.

“What hope do you have?” Snickered a cat-eyed beast that swam along the storefront windows.

“You can't escape,” said a man with a newspaper that stood on a corner. Jun paused a moment to stare as the man twisted into a strange shape--a creature that resembled nothing so much as a lamp-post with bug's eyes.

The creature reached for him with a tentacle-like arm and he screamed. He turned to run and shoved a woman who blocked his path. A shrill whistle went up from the crowd. It followed him down the street and became a raven-winged bird.

“It's not real!” His mind screamed as he ran, dashing through the traffic to a symphony of tires and honks.

Hands reached out and grabbed him. They pulled him down a side road and were gone; Jun ran on, heedless, and the noise of the major streets quietly ended. With only his own, heavy breath pounding in his ears and his heart clogging his throat, Jun stumbled to a walk. His knees shook, protested, and gave; the boy ate dirt and skinned his hands.

For a long moment it was all that he could do to breathe. His gasps for air became shaky, and then they turned to sobs.

“Why are you crying,” asked a pair of tiny, brilliant hi-tops. Jun sniffed and looked up at the chubby-cheeked demon that stared down at him. She was sucking on a human finger; it had on a ring which looked familiar.

The demon popped the gory digit out of her mouth and offered it to him. Jun rubbed his nose with a grimy fist and shook his head.

“Small Lady?” A woman called as she came around the corner of the next side street. Jun stared at the woman and his mouth went dry. Two long, blond tails of hair hung down like ribbons trailing behind the woman's every step--they were natural, that was obvious in an instant, and as pale as his own. She stopped a few feet away and stared back at him in much the same manner.

“Momma, I found a boy!” The girl--who was no longer a demon, but a young child in a sailor uniform--proclaimed. “He's sad. Can I keep him?”

In an instant the dazed look vanished from the woman's eyes and she beamed at the girl. “Well, I don't know about keeping him, but I do believe that he should come home with us. Help him up, Small Lady.”

Jun scrambled to his feet before the girl could touch him and then she claimed his hand, anyway. The very sensation of so innocent a touch, like nothing he'd received in years, made him return the girl's smile. Small Lady popped her lollipop back into her mouth and pulled him along behind her mother.

They walked home; Mrs. Chiba lead the way with her paper grocery bags tucked into her arms, Small Lady filled the middle, alternately sucking on the lollipop and holding her mother's skirt. Jun trailed behind them like a lost puppy.

Along the way he learned that Small Lady was six-years-old. She liked rabbits and ducks, her favorite colour was blue (but, she insisted, she looked better in pink,) and her father worked with “homeless people.”

At that, Mrs. Chiba interrupted to clarify: “Not homeless people, he works with children.”

“Homeless children,” the girl said with a shrug. Jun was beginning to get a bad feeling about this and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. One glance of Small Lady's eyes forced him to walk again, though he couldn't fathom why. Maybe she was a something of a demon after all, if only a tiny one.

“Today is Momma's birthday. She's going to be old,” Small lady chattered as Mrs. Chiba unlocked the front door to their two-story home. It was moderately sized, Jun thought. Visions of his father's old house, which could have fit theirs into it several times over, swam before his eyes and he blinked rapidly to clear them. Small Lady's hands once again closed around his fingers and she guided him up the stairs.

The inside was painted in brilliant, sunny yellows. Even with the curtains drawn over the front room windows, there was enough light spilling in from the open archway into the kitchen that it seemed to illuminate the whole house. Carefully place mirrors gave the illusion of space, and the smell of lilacs floated upon the air.

Mrs. Chiba dropped her keys and the grocery bags onto the kitchen table. “Jun-kun, there's a phone in the living room. You should call your parents and let them know where you are.”

“… kun?” He muttered into the still air of the entryway. Still standing beside him, Small Lady clapped a hand to her mouth and giggled.

Leaning toward him, the girl whispered, “You have to forgive Momma. She thinks that everyone is family. It's because she's old.”

“I can hear you!” Mrs. Chiba laughed from the kitchen.

“I love you, Momma!” Small Lady giggled and dashed into the kitchen. She dragged a chair out from the table to climb on so that she could reach the grocery bags. For a moment, Jun just watched the happy pair putting away their groceries. A wink of light reflected the ring Mrs. Chiba was wearing hit upon a metallic phone nearby.

Jun gulped and drug his feet toward the object. He sat down on the couch beside its table and reached forward to pick up the receiver. The boy startled when pounding feet entered the room and looked up to see Chibi Usa disappear up the stairs to the second floor.

With his heart still in his throat, the boy picked up the phone and pressed numbers he long since thought he'd forgotten. The phone rang in his ears and for a moment Jun was certain that the machine would pick up.

“Hello?” A distant, gruff voiced asked.

Jun swallowed and wet his lips. His fingers knotted at the knees of his jeans. “Dad.”

“Where are you?” The man asked. “This isn't the hospital's number.”

“I…” Jun chewed on his bottom lip. He could feel the irritation dripping out of the phone like slime. It ran down his cheek and stained his shirt blood red. The boy sucked in a deep breath. “Can I come home? I promise it'll be better.”

“Jun, we've been over this,” the voice sighed. Jun slapped the phone back onto the receiver and buried his face in his hands.

A hand touched his back and the boy jumped. To her credit, Mrs. Chiba didn't take her hand away and only smiled when he looked at her. There was a brightness to her eyes that he didn't like, and her fingers brushed gently away the bangs obscuring his eyes. “She was right. I'm getting old,” the woman said after a moment, “and today is our celebration of that. Would you stay for dinner? I think I'd like to have you here.”

“I'll stay.”

A delighted shriek erupted from the stairwell and in a moment there was a child-demon clutching him about the neck. Jun jumped in surprise, laughed, and after a moment returned Small Lady's hug. Mrs. Chiba smiled and stood up. “I'm glad. Mako-chan is supposed to be here to help us cook, soon.”

  
“Yay Aunt Mako-chan!” Small Lady crowed as she let go of her hostage. The girl jumped and clapped her hands, “You'll like Mako-chan, Jun-san, she's a Goddess of cooking!”

Mrs. Chiba nodded her head. “I should go prepare the kitchen for her. Jun-san, please make yourself at home.”

Small Lady grabbed Jun's hand and he let her pull him from the couch. The phone rang and Mrs. Chiba moved to answer it. “Come see my room! I have Sailor V video games!”

“Sailor V? What's that?” he asked and was lead up the stairs. The girl gasped in horror.

“Mamo-chan!” Mrs. Chiba grinned against the receiver, “When are you going to be home?”

“Daddy!” Small Lady stopped in her assent of the stairs and turned to watch her mother. Not knowing what else to do, Jun followed suit. They watched as Mrs. Chiba's smile wavered and waned into a pathetic shadow of its former self. The fingers that had been playing with the phone cord stilled as she nodded to the conversation only she could hear.

“I understand,” the woman said after a few moments. Her voice was light, but the upward tug of her lips twisted Jun's gut into knots. “I hope you find him. We'll be waiting whenever you get home… No, it's okay! Be safe.”

Small Lady took the last few steps back down to the landing after her mother had put the receiver back upon its cradle. “Momma?”

“Your father has had an emergency come up at work,” Mrs. Chiba explained. “He might not be in until late tonight.”

“Is he okay?” Jun asked. Her bright eyes turned upon him and the smile she gave him, though sad, was still true.

  
“He's fine. One of the boys he works with went missing and they're trying to find him. He and Ami-chan might be out all night.”

“Oh,” Small Lady sighed. She looked back up at her playmate and reached again for his hand. “Ami-chan is a doctor. She works with crazy people.”

The sense of dread he'd been fighting since he'd met the two resettled into his gut. It was then, as he turned, that one of the photographs hung on the wall caught his eye. A very familiar green jacket…

  
“Mizuno Ami,” he stated and from the corner of his eye saw both females startle. Mrs. Chiba took a step toward him, her eyebrows knotting upon her forehead.

“How do you know that?”

Jun swallowed thickly and toed the wood of the staircase step. With slow determination, he forced his chin up again and peeked through bouncing curls at the woman staring at him. “Can you tell me how to get back to the hospital?”

Jun sat at the counter and wished that she would say something. Normal people screamed and shouted when they found out that they were harbouring a lunatic; Mrs. Chiba made tea.

Small Lady sat to his right and stared at him in the manner which only small children could get away with, and Jun stared at his hands while wishing that he were anywhere else. A steaming cup was set in front of him and he picked it up to sip.

Mrs. Chiba lingered over her own cup. “It took me years to figure out how to make this.”

“Tea?” He asked, eyes flickering up to her face.

“Mhm,” Mrs. Chiba nodded and took another sip of from her cup. “Things like this never came easily to me. I owe Mako-chan a lot… It seems no matter how bad I was at this, or how many of them I inadvertently poisoned, my friends were always willing to help me through it.”

“Oh…” Jun's eyes returned to his tea.

“Do you have any friends there, Jun-kun?”

The boy wetted his lips with the tip of his tongue and tapped his fingers against his mug. This felt like one of his counseling sessions. He looked up again to make certain that it was Mrs. Chiba he was facing and not the fat, arrogant doctor his father had picked.

It was, and his lips twitched before he ducked his head again. He had to force his mouth to open, “Sorta. Not really.”

“That's no fun,” Mrs. Chiba sighed.

“But you have sorta-friends, right?” Small Lady frowned and stuck her chin on the countertop. Jun glanced at her and couldn't help his smile.

“I guess. There's Zoe. She isn't bad. We fight a lot, though.”

He startled when Mrs. Chiba laughed. She shook her head and swallowed her mirth when he looked at her. “Oh, it isn't you. It's just that… One of my closest friends, like a sister to me, she and I fight constantly. We can't help it, we're too different. But if she needs me, she knows I'll be there, and vice versa.”

Jun nodded a little and wrapped his hands around the hot ceramic. After a moment, the woman leaned against the sink-side of the counter and put her face close to his. Their eyes met and he felt himself sinking into their peaceful depths. “Jun-kun. I can understand why you don't want to go back… but running away isn't an answer. Trust me. I've tried it. Maybe if you spend more time with this Zoe you can be her real friend?”

Hope sparked and died in an instant and Jun tore his eyes away. “I'm sick. We both are. Who wants to be friends with a sick person?”

“Maybe you can help each other,” She suggested. “Who better to understand, than someone who knows? Maybe you can get better.”

“What if I can't?” Jun whispered. “What if it's something that can't be fixed? What if this is just how I was supposed to be?”

A small hand touched his elbow and Jun turned his head to see Small Lady wrapping her arm about his. She leaned her cheek to his shoulder and smiled. “It doesn't matter. I like you just as you are, and so does Momma. Right?”

“That's right.” Mrs. Chiba smiled, and a soft white light filled the kitchen. Jun had never seen this emotion before, but it touched him and filled him and helped him out the door.

Small Lady held his hand as they walked to the hospital doors. When he paused at the entrance, she squeezed his fingers and gave him a radiant smile. Jun's feet remembered how to walk and he made it past the threshold.

Mrs. Chiba touched his shoulder gently, and then went to the nurse's station nearby. The woman there was staring at him and muttering into a phone--the orderlies wouldn't be too far behind.

Jun's eyes dropped down to the girl beside him. This time, when his curls threatened to block his vision, he pushed them back himself. Small Lady giggled, and then a voice pulled her eyes to the side. “Daddy!”

She broke from his side and raced toward her father across the lounge. Chiba Mamoru's eyes tore from Jun and he grinned for his daughter. The man bent down and met her with arms about her middle, pulling her up against him as he stood.

“You brought him to me,” a familiar voice whispered from behind a pillar. Jun's head jerked round to face the red-head who now peeked around the stone column. Her eyes were for no one but that horrid green jacket. Jun swallowed bile and his hands curled into tight fists.

“I didn't.”

Bachiko didn't even blink. She headed past him, mile-long hair tumbled down over the tresses of her violet gown, toward front desk where the Chibas waited, and the red that filled Jun's vision was his own. One hand snatched out to grab her arm, digging into the flesh as Bachiko shrieked. Her eyes glowed like blood-red lights in the darkness that surrounded them.

The heads of the adults snapped up; Jun didn't care about that. He pulled Bachiko around to face him, ignoring the claws that raked against his arm and face, and grabbed her by the shoulders. He shook her, and she screamed as he screamed. There was nothing but white silence in his ears.

Hands pulled them apart, and dragged him down a hallway. In the hours that passed, locked into a dark bedroom, all he could remember were Small Lady's eyes watching as he was locked away.

“Jun?”

He turned his head and looked at the doctor entering his room. The vision of her tried to waver and warp. Jun planted a mental “foot” on it and Mizuno snapped into focus.

The woman offered him a weak smile and gestured to the chair at his desk. “May I? We need to talk.”

“You're not my doctor.”

Mizuno pressed her lips together as she pulled the chair out and sank into it. “I am now.”

When she realized that he wasn't going to respond, Mizuno twisted her fingers together and leaned forward on her knees. “Jun… I know that this is difficult, but there is something that I must ask you and I need you to tell me the truth.”

The boy shifted just enough upon his bed that he could stare at her. She nodded to herself and continued, “Some of the things you… said to Bachiko this afternoon. There were implications… We've spoken with her, but I need you to tell me. Has Bachiko ever touched you against your will?”

Jun leaned his head back against the wall. The minutes kicked by until Mizuno sighed.

“It doesn't matter,” Jun cut her off.

The woman's lips settled into a thin line. “Of course it matters. I need a 'yes' or 'no,' not an ambiguous--”

“No, it doesn't,” he stressed. Mizuno's mouth shut with a click. A smile tugged at the corner of Jun's lips and he had to laugh. “She isn't going to touch me again. Ever. I owe her nothing.”

The doctor's mouth opened and closed a few times, and then she shook her head and stared at her knees. Jun watched this, and the conflicting swirls of colour emanating from her thin form. Eventually he sat up a little, arms hooked about his knees, and waited until she met his eyes. “It doesn't matter.”

The colours surrounding her solidified into a deep blue through which swam dark shapes torn from the depths of the ocean. The scene filled the woman's eyes, like windows into the abyss. “Yes or no, Jun.”

He settled back into the corner of his cell. “Yes.”

Mizuno Ami rose from the chair and gave him one last, long look before she returned to the door. There was a figure waiting behind it, in the robes of a Priestess. His vision filled with violet, and the world went up in flames.


	3. Runaway Train

  
**Nicholas**   
  
__  
_December 2008. Houston, TX_

 

Sometimes, when it was very late, he would slip from beneath the sheets and tip-toe over uneven floorboards to the naked window across the room. In the summer, the windows would be open but for a patchy screen that did nothing to deter the bugs, and in the winter the glass would be drawn so that his breath would fog against it. The world outside changed, too. Cicadas through the spring to fall; leaves upon the trees or barren, jagged sticks that pierced the skies. Sometimes they had neighbors, sometimes the other houses were abandoned.

The only constant hung far above them, too distant to touch but so bright that their light saturated everything below. Somewhere in the depths of the house a glass shattered, and a woman cried. A wall shook. He covered his ears with his hands and listened to the song drifting from the heavens.

Nick's eyes opened to a beer bottle bursting beside his head. He winced away in time so that the shards and booze only stung his cheek, then peeked between his lashes to see where it had come from.

The drunk standing in the open doorway wobbled in place, his hefty form a blank silhouette against toxic neon light. Nick remained motionless as the man took a step forward, stumbled over the stoop he hadn't realized was there, waved his arms a bit and regained balance. He turned, raised a fist at the bar and yelled something--it wasn't English, Nick thought, but it didn't sound polite. Jeers and catcalls returned fire, and the drunk began to wobble purposefully back toward the door. It slammed in his face, and for a moment he stood there, dazed, as if he weren't sure what had happened.

Like a bear waking from hibernation, the drunk shook his head and turned again. A passing car caught the man's eyes, casting them a reflective yellow. Nick didn't dare shiver; he didn't dare to breathe.

Then the drunk shuffled a step to the left, and another, rotating by degrees to lumber down the alley toward the open street.

When he had gone, Nick let out the breath he'd been holding and climbed to his feet. He skirted around the shards of broken beer bottle and drew his coat tight around him. Not that it mattered--the wind was intent on piercing every hole and thread-bare spot it could find. Raucous laughter from inside the rat's nest bar reminded him of why the open street was better than the dubious shelter of the alley, and he plunged back into the night.

Most people, Nick thought, did not consider southeast Texas to be very cold, even in the dead of winter. Short of the freak ice storm, he remembered from his school years that temperatures never actually dropped below the twenties. Could have fooled him.

This time of night there weren't many cars about. Nick shuffled down the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets. He ignored the "Do Not Walk" neons attached to the traffic poles. A car whistled just past him, horn blazing, and he jumped--he hadn't even heard it coming. With a quick look for anything else barreling down the road, he jogged the rest of the way to the corner. Nick tripped over his own feet as he reached safety and pitched head-first into the shadow of a tree.

He grunted when he hit the pavement, arms scraped up where they'd extended to catch his fall. With a groan he pulled himself up, and winced as his knees and elbows protested. Everything was dark--damned dark--for a moment, and then a flickering orange light illuminated a nearby gang mark splashed over the corner of a familiar warehouse. Nick cursed and whirled around to look at the street he'd just crossed.

It was gone.

Only a flickering lamp over a long-forgotten phone booth stood behind him, at the head of an alley he didn't remember entering. Nick looked about him, gulped, and approached the lamp.

The only sound to be heard was the whistle of the sharp winter wind, the dull grumbling of a nearby highway, and the erratic flapping of a flier stapled to the lamp post. Warehouses lined the streets, all dark and empty. A few boasted broken windows, and more gristly graffiti. Nick didn't like the markings, they sent shivers down his back that had nothing to do with the wind. Odds were that this was someone's territory, and he would run into them sooner or later.

He stopped at the lamp post and waited, though he wasn't sure for what.

 _Take it._

Nick jumped (just barely, he told himself) and looked up. A single star glittered brighter than the others in the night sky. There weren't' enough of them visible that he could see the constellation it was apart of, but he thought it was Taurus. Next to him, the flyer seemed to flap more instantly. An icy blast hit him in the face and Nick yelped.

"Okay, okay!" He ripped the paper from the pole and shoved it in a pocket. "Happy?"

The wind died.

For a long moment, Nick remained standing there, waiting for something to spring upon his back. When it didn't seem inclined to do so, he edged away from the pole and walked away at a fast clip. Never run, he reminded himself, and he could have sworn that he heard laughter.

Night faded to day, faded to night. The neon lights of a Mc D's, and parking-lot lamps illuminated the city's forgotten snoozing on grass dividers and benches. The occasional, rabbit-like employee would scuttle from the back door to the trash bin, confident only because of watchful, never-blinking electronic eyes. First pickings of the bags went to the strongest of the Desperates--the ones so misshapen or hard-fallen that begging no longer worked. No one wanted to help you if you looked like you really needed it.

Nick found a half a Big Mac. The ever-present growl of his stomach silenced whatever guilt had thought to surface when he'd elbowed an old man in the face to get it. Survival of the fittest was relative in their world, but it was still relevant. He scuttled away with his prize and shoved it down his throat as fast as it would go.

Still sucking the grease from his fingers, as well as a healthy portion of dirt, Nick crept away from the fast food joint before the employees could call the cops. They would, inevitably, and he didn't cherish the idea of breaking out of another half-way house. Or would it be juvie, this time? He ducked around the corner of a nearby store and into the darkness of a blind alley. A nearby cat hissed and put her back up, but he turned from her and took a look at the far-side of the dumpster. Seemed as good a hiding place as any, he thought. Stomach reasonably appeased, he drew his jacket around him and let his eyes close.

Crumpled fast-food containers formed a mountain range over the beaten and tattered coffee table. She peered over them, painted lips stretched into a cheesy smile; she looked like a street-walker, or so his dad muttered under his breath.

He muttered a lot of other, nastier-sounding things, and Nick pretended not to hear. They sat on the booze-scented couch and watched as she preened for the cameras. Happy kids playing Little League baseball obscured her for a moment, but over their noise she prattled on about seasonal scores and the weather. Everyone around her laughed as if she were funny.

Then, with a practiced pout, she informed the cameras of a mass murder somewhere in the Middle East. Bloodshed neatly sandwiched between sports and celebrity babies--she'd sat on that very couch and complained when her predecessors had done the same.

His dad got up and lurched to the kitchen. Bottles rattled and something fell. A sharp curse, and Nick winced. He dug himself deeper into the reeking cushions and went still.

The note in his pocket crackled as he sat on it. Nick cleared his blurry eyes and fished it out. A yellow scrap of lined paper made his heart flutter, before it melted into highlighter pink. With a frown he uncrumpled the flier enough to read it.

YOUTH LINK HOTLINE

IT CAN BE HARD TO BE A TEEN.

IF YOU'RE HAVING A ROUGH TIME AT SCHOOL, WITH YOUR PARENTS, OR YOU JUST NEED TO TALK TO SOMEONE--PLEASE, DON'T HESITATE. NO NAMES, NO TATTLING, JUST TALKING.

NO ONE IS EVER ALONE.

A sneer tugged at his lips and he rolled the paper into a ball to toss down the dirty back alley. A hand grabbed his wrist as he raised his arm.

Nick jumped away, stumbled, looked behind him... There was no one near him, but the feeling of fingers against his skin remained. He didn't look. Clutching the paper so hard that it hurt, a few sharp edges poking bloody lines into his palms, Nick fled for the streets beyond.

A corner later, he stopped and stared at the flickering lamp post and the graffiti-covered payphone beneath it.

Nick's stomach rolled. Above him, Taurus pulsated in the orange-brown sky.

One step backward, then another. Nick turned once he'd stumbled over the curb and into the deserted street. He jogged across it, ignoring the fingers that tugged at the end of his pants, the tail of his jacket, and locks of his hair. On the other side, he looked again at the stuttering lamplight and gulped. "Leave me alone," he muttered; he didn't wait for a reply.

The shivering freeway blocked the light of the stars, though not the omnipresent, toxic spill of orange streetlight. He laid with his back to the dirt and weeds, eyes fixated on the orange-black concrete far above. Still panting from his run, Nick shuddered at the feeling of fingers running through his hair. With a careful hand he reached above him until his fingers met the base of the concrete column that supported the monolith.

She was sitting behind him on the bed, her fingers playing with his long brown hair. It was one of the things she'd always loved about him, she said--he had her hair.

A freezing wind slammed through the dusty patch of industrial wasteland and Nick jumped. He blinked as his eyes re-adjusted to the lamplight; the wind died and underneath it he heard humming. A quick look about him found a burning oil drum not too far away, with a mound of jackets standing beside it. Nick pulled himself to his feet and shuffled closer.

The woman looked up when he was a few feet from her make-shift furnace; he stopped and their eyes met.

"Here kitty, kitty." She grinned a snaggle-toothed grin, and gestured to him with two gnarled fingers. When another look around them garnered no cat, Nick decided she meant him. Her grin grew wider, were that possible, and she nodded as she returned both hands to warming at the flames. Nick took a place across the barrel from her and lifted his hands to the heat.

The tiny fire wasn't much in the face of a winter wind, but it was enough. After awhile, the woman laid down a safe distance from the barrel. When Nick was certain she was asleep, he settled down to sit across from her and watched the sun come up. His eyes opened when the sun was far overhead and cars screamed murder above him. Nick rubbed his eye with a gritty hand and frowned at the grass in front of him.

The fire was gone, and so was the barrel. A hot-pink flier laid perfect in their stead, not even ruffled by the tugging of the wind. He picked it up with a trembling hand.

After a quick scan of the front, Nick crumpled it to a ball and threw it away. Ignoring the prick of rocks through threadbare soles, he fled back to the safety of the city at large.

Pink fliers dotted the whole of Houston. They were pasted up in the truck stop bathroom where he stopped to scrub himself clean, and tacked to the electricity poles along Westheimer. A few jay-walked across the street where he stopped to pan-handle. Nick wondered if those kind-hearted souls at Youth Link cared at all about how much they littered.

By late evening he'd scraped together enough change to buy a burger instead of stealing one, and bus fare to another side of town. The Value Menu was the best invention of all time, Nick thought, even as the stares and fidgeting of the McDonald's staff sent him scuttling out the door with his bagged prized.

Eating on the bus wasn't acceptable. He plopped down at the nearest bus stop and shoved the burger into his mouth. An old man joined him a moment later, perching on the other end of the bench, and when he didn't make a move to bother Nick, the boy ignored him. Food, after all, was far more important. So long as the man didn't try to take it from him, he was inconsequential.

Yet a glance at the man raised the hairs on the back of his neck. The geezer's skin was the colour of baked leather, and he bore his years in deep rivulets loosely drawn around his bones. There was something familiar in the set of his jaw, the rancid jacket drawn over his wasting frame, but Nick couldn't place it. He finished his burger as a screech of wearing breaks alerted him to the bus.

"He's your son, too!" The shout from the living room rattled the pictures on the walls. He ducked away from the glow of the open doorway and pressed his shoulder to the wall. "Why is everything he does my fault?"

Laughter met that question, as cold and dry as the winter. "We both know it runs in your family, Benjamin. Your father was the same way."

"My father," the man spat acid, "had early on-set dementia, Helen. He does not!"

"You can't tell me that there isn't something wrong with him! Why are you so blind to it?"

"He has an imagination. Since when is that a crime? You should be proud our son--"

"Proud that our son talks to himself? Proud that he draws his classmates in coffins? Proud that he told his teacher her baby was a bastard?" Something shattered against the wall behind him and he winced away from it. Helen reminded him of a bird--her voice was so shrill it hurt his ears. "No, Benjamin, no. I'm not proud of that! Look at my arms, Ben!"

Nick pulled his knees to his chest and hugged them tight. He wanted to scream but he shoved his fist into his mouth. He heard his father grunt, and his mother hiss. She continued, her voice so tight that Nick could imagine the frown lines sealing themselves in between her eyebrows, "He drew blood this time. I don't know what the fuck his problem was--he didn't want to go to school, so he started screaming and biting when he saw the bus."

"Helen," Benjamin began when the phone rang. "I... just a minute."

"Whatever."

Heavy steps came close to the hallway door. Nick scooted away from it as the cries of the phone cut off, "Hello? Yeah, Ma, I... Yes, Nick's at home. Why--..."

"Kid?" The bus driver demanded and spat onto the concrete. Nick rubbed groggy eyes and groaned, turning his head to look at the shoes beside him. Several of the bus's patrons were gathered around--a flash went off and Nick winced away from the camera phone. Goddamn vultures.

"He's comin' to," someone pointed out as if the people around them were blind. Perhaps they had a point, Nick realized.

With a groan, he pushed himself into a sit and stared at the bench he'd fallen off of. The way his side and head were aching, he hadn't thought to catch himself. One of the women in the crowd muttered something about drug abuse with a snotty sniff of her nose. Behind the bus, a car blared it's horn and screamed profanities through thin plate glass and rusted metal.

A meaty hand grabbed his arm. "C'mon kid," the bus driver drawled and tried to pull him to his feet. Nick slapped the man's hand and scrambled backward as he stumbled to his feet. The people he bumped into yelped and swore.

On his feet again, Nick swayed and the on-lookers gave him room. A woman pulled her child to her and edged toward the steps of the bus. The hairs on the back of his neck lifted as their eyes locked.

"Don't get in the bathtub," he muttered. One of the men nearest him moved to grab his again, and Nick danced away, toward the woman, whose back pressed to the door of the bus. Nick stumbled to a halt in front of her, but his eyes went to the blond child in her grasp. His lips were as blue as his eyes and veins lined his chalk-like skin. "Don't. Don't let her."

"Alright, kid, c'mon." The bus driver frowned as he lumbered closer. "You just hit your head. We called nine-one-one."

If he faced the driver, his back would be to the bus. There were people still on the bus--he could hear them whispering. Nick dodged the driver's attempt at grabbing him, feet thumping against the side walk.

"Kid! Hey kid!" The onlookers called after him. Nick didn't listen. All he could hear were the footsteps in his wake, and the urging from the glittering heavens. Onward, they cried, and onward he ran until he felt like his lungs would burst.

He tripped over the loose laces of his shoes and went sprawling against the pavement. Silence enclosed around him; not the distant broken silence of the city, but a purer, breath-held silence that sent shivers down his spine. Nick carefully pushed himself up and looked through his dirty clumps of brown hair at the stuttering lamppost down the street.

The flier-covered payphone still stood there, beckoning to him, and above it Taurus glowed steady in the gathering night.

Two footsteps behind him, then more to his right.

Nick shoved himself to his feet and put his back to the warehouse wall. Behind him was the old man from the bus station. Looking at him directly, he could see the shiner the old man was sporting on his left eye. Distant memories of a McDonald's dumpster woke in his memory and he winced.

"So yer'a crazy," the old man rasped with a rusted laugh. Two other men had appeared from across the street, and Nick heard another set of footsteps to his right. He hunched his shoulders and stared the old man down. "Still. Even a crazy should have some manners. Maybe we best learn you some."

His mouth opened to make some reply, even he wasn't sure what. It didn't matter, though. One of the men's fist met his jaw and the world dissolved into pain.

It could have been ten minutes, it could have been an eternity later, but eventually they left Nick a pile of bruises and blood on the street corner. The old geezer spat on him, muttering about no-good-kids as the gang slipped back into the seedy underbelly of the night. Nick watched the blood drip a long line from his busted lip to the pavement and concentrated on breathing.

Another gust of icy wind slapped his face. He winced, and when he looked back at his feet he found them covered in highlighter-pink.

Trembling, bloody fingers picked up the flier and Nick lipped the words as he read them once again.

He limped his way to the payphone by degrees, but he made it. The phone cradled against his ear, he ignored the silence on the other end and punched the faded number buttons with his thumb. As it began to ring, he dropped onto his butt and put his back to the booth.

"Youth Link Hotline."

Nick sniffled and rubbed his fist against his nose. He could hear the boy on the other end breathing. His lips moved without sound and he closed his eyes.

"It's okay," the voice startled him out of half-doze. The line of the phone was surprisingly clear; not a hiss, not a pop, just the steady breathing on the other end and the boy's voice. Nick was confident he'd heard it before, he just couldn't place where. "If you aren't ready to talk. We're glad you called."

"Y'don't even know why..." Nick rasped and shook his head. He lifted one hand to rub between his eyes.

"It doesn't matter, right now, where you are or how you got there. You called. That's the hardest part."

Three months ago, Nick would have laughed at this hippie bullshit. Even now, he wanted to spit, to cuss, to scream that this kid didn't know shit. Something in the boy's voice kept him from doing so. It didn't feel as though screaming would help.

Or maybe he was just too tired.

"Sure it is," Nick sighed after a moment. " _That's_ the hardest part."

"Care to offer a different opinion?"

His gaze drew upward to the lights of Taurus, still peeking through the fog of pollution. "Yeah, I do."

Morning light was peeking over the warehouses when Nick hung up the phone. He scrubbed the sleeves of his jacket against his dirty cheeks and picked himself up off the ground. Cars were beginning to appear--lawful citizens on their way to work, without a single care for the dirty kid trudging down the sidewalk. He found himself a dark corner in an alley and curled up to sleep his hurt away.

He woke to someone toeing his leg. "Wakey wakey," a amused voice cooed. Nick frowned and rubbed his eyes open. When the world came back into focus, he found himself faced with three guys around his age staring down at him. That they were all dressed in clean clothing was the first thing that registered. The second was the identical handkerchiefs worn in various ways about their persons. Last was the predatory twist to the smiles they each wore.

The one in the middle nudged his leg again. "So kid, the fuck do you think you're doin?"

"Sleepin'," Nick muttered.

"Oh. Sleepin," the boy nodded. The kick he delivered to Nick's side managed to coincide with a bruise from the night before.

With a yelp, Nick curled up on himself and pushed his back further into the corner. "Damn," the boy laughed, his two cronies chuckling in chorus, "You sure gotta smart mouth for a no-good, slacker, sack of shit, cracker."

They slapped their hands together as if that were a witty put down. "You know where you is, boy?"

Nick dared to raise his head enough to see the kid standing over him. Something inside of him rolled over, like the feeling of being seasick, and he fought the bile that wanted to escape his throat.

"You're on our _turf_ , that's where you is," the kid explained with hand-gestured he'd probably picked up from the Fresh Prince. "And we don't take kindly to no-account, bummin' pansy crackers like you hangin' on our property, ain't that right?"

"Yeah," agreed one of his home-boys. The other pumped his fist.

Encouraged, their spokesman bobbled his head like a dashboard toy. "So this is us givin' you our warning, cause we all nice like that and shit. But we see your raunchy bed-head dreads around here again, and we gonna hafta get mean."

The warning was sealed with another kick before the trio be-bopped their way out of the alley. When he was sure they were gone, Nick groaned and leaned his forehead against his knees. As much as he didn't want to move, he drug him himself to his feet with a groan and shuffled out of the alley.

On the warehouse across the street a fresh tag shone in the afternoon sun, reminding him that this was a place he should have known better than to stop at. "Stupid," he muttered at himself and continued on down the street.

Good ol' Denny's. The waitstaff gave him pathetic looks as he scuttled through to the restroom. Nick couldn't help but notice that for all their pity they still made aplenty room for him to get by. He closed the door behind him and gathered up rough paper towels for a quick wash.

When he came out again, he was pretty sure that he looked at least a little better. With his nose still turning various shades of violet, he couldn't smell anything to be sure. Not that he'd ever smell decently clean again; that was a lost cause.

"Hey kiddo," fingers plucked at his jacket and he yelped, startling the old woman in a power-pink dress and apron. She retracted her hand to her bosom, penciled eyebrows lifting toward her blue hairline. When she smiled it was more genuine than not, and she had pink smeared on her two front teeth. "Why don't you sit down for a bit, huh? Got a corner here with your name on it."

Nick edged a step to the side, till his hip touched the edge of a table. "Don't got any money," he grumbled after a moment.

"Sit," the woman flapped a hand at him, indicating the booth he was standing at. "Don't you worry about that. If I never seen a face in need of some dinner..." She shook her head as if to say that the rest of the sentence was obvious. Perhaps it was. Nick sunk into the booth and buried his head in his arms. It hurt like everything other inch of him, but he didn't mind.

Over the cheesy restaurant music and the hiss of actual patrons, he could hear the waitress bossing the cook about in the kitchen.

"Benny, don't you dare."

"He's a bum! He'll probably rob the joint."

"Don't you talk like that about the boy." The smell of peppermints wafted on the air and the carpet under his naked, dirty feet was shag forgotten from the seventies. "It wasn't his fault what happened with that bitch of yours."

"Mother," Benjamin growled. He raked his hand through his salt-and-pepper crew cut and glared at the weathered kitchen table. "Don't talk about Helen that way. Please."

"I'll talk about her however I damn well please, young man. This is still my house and if you intend to live in it, you'll get used to it." The woman sitting across from him was about as ancient as her table and just as weathered. Her skin looked like wrinkled leather drawn taught over sharp bones, and she still dressed in hand-made clothes that had been patched so many times he wasn't certain what the original fabric had been. A thread-bare shawl was draped across her pointy shoulders and she glared around her beak of a nose at the man she'd raised.

Lines of disapproval gathered at the corners of her mouth as her eyes cut toward his hiding place. Nick ducked back around the kitchen doorway, but he knew that she'd seen him.

"Maybe I don't intend to live in it," Benjamin muttered to his palms.

"Don't be a fool," Grandmother Elenore spat, "I didn't raise you like that and nor did your pa. Didn't raise you to beat your child, either."

"I didn't touch him," Benjamin growled. "I ain't never touched him! Get in here, Nick, we're leaving."

The chair clattered to the floor behind Benjamin and Nick winced. He ducked back around the kitchen doorway in time to watch the screen door hit his father's backside. Elenore snorted and shook her head. One beady eye turned toward him and she reached out to run her claws through his hair. It was down to his butt, now, and tangled as ever.

"This'll be the first to go when you two get settled in," she informed him, "Now get after him, boy."

He jolted upright to the clatter of porcelain on wood. A steaming burger and fries sat in front of him, now, complete with a huge glass of milk. His stomach growled a thank you, but his eyes were drawn up to the waitress standing over him.

"Don't you worry your head over it," the woman winked, "Ain't nothin' bad in there, and ain't no tab to go with it. You eat up."

Nick picked the sandwich up carefully, his eyes still on her. One bite told him it was real. The rest followed on instinct, and the waitress left him to attend paying customers. And if she noticed a few tears sliding down his cheeks when she deposited a slice of chocolate cake beside his elbow she didn't say a word.

Over the next few days the incident was never far from his mind. He lurked near that Denny's like one of the stray cats that dug through their garbage. The waitress would always smile and wave when she caught a glimpse of him, but he didn't dare to go in again. Not with Benny's beady eyes peeking from behind the pick-up window.

The bruises on his body faded by degrees. At some point his nose stopped throbbing, and the swell of his lip seemed to magically fade. When darkness fell, Nick would climb onto the roof and sleep. He felt sure that the waitresses knew he was there but the cops were never called. Three weeks passed in a haze; cars and patrons came and went, and the waitstaff became used to him.

Whatever the lamp post had wanted from him seemed to have passed. Nick was glad of that.

When Spring came to the bayou city, it brought with it a fresh surge of storms and clouds of mosquitoes. He sat on the curb across the street and watched the yellow glow inside the Denny's. The waitress was there again, as she was most nights, and every so often she would glance at him. Nick fidgeted when she did that and tugged his jacket a little more over his head. He smelt like a wet dog, even to himself, and couldn't shake the feeling that he looked like a stray puppy in this weather.

Sometime between the late-dinner and the after-club rush, the waitress donned a raincoat and galoshes, grabbed her umbrella and came marching out into the downpour. Nick's shoulder's tensed when he realized she was coming for him. He glanced down each side of the street, but there was no traffic keep them apart.

"You're going to catch your death," the woman announced as she stopped in front of him. "Now I don't know why you sit out here, but you're comin' in tonight."

One pink-nailed hand stretched out to him and a penciled eyebrow rose in challenge. When Nick stared at her hand too long, she curled her fingers in quick gesture and shoved it a little more in his face.

He caught her eyes again, green and vibrant as spring grass, and let his hand touch hers. A smile stretched across her painted lips and she closed her hand firmly around his. "Good boy. Come on in, now. If you're so worried about your meal, you can scrub some dishes."

Nick let her lead him into the restaurant with the barest of balks at the front door. From the kitchen, Benny glared at him but said not a word when the waitress let go of her hand and gave Nick a push toward the restroom. "Get yourself washed up. I know you know how."

"Yes ma'am," he murmured and did as told. The handful of regulars sitting about the dining room didn't look up, this time. Nick took that as a good sign and let the restroom door close behind him.

His reflection wasn't much different from what it had those few weeks ago. A little less purple, a little more yellow and tan. He tugged a lock of his clumped and matted hair; the itching had long ago ceased to bother him, but the sight of crawlers at the roots made him shudder and blush.  
A bang of the door behind him made Nick jump, and the man who had walked in gave him a wary eye. Hunching his shoulders together, Nick eyed his hair again and then grabbed some paper towels.

There wasn't anything he could do about it, he realized, short of chopping it off. What would he use to do that, anyway? After a quick scrub to get the top layer of dirt off, at least of what skin was visible, he peeked back into the restaurant proper.

As if she'd been watching for him, the waitress looked up at that moment and waved him out into the open. Nick kept his head down as he crossed back over to her. Measuring green eyes looked over and she nodded, "That'll do. For now."

"Bev, I can't have him back here," Benny grumbled from the kitchen. "You know that."

"Shush, Ben," the woman scowled, then turned another sweet smile on him. "Well, he's right, of course. But we can change that."

Nick ran his teeth over his bottom lip as he watched her. Maybe it was his expression that made the woman--Beverly, said her name tag--nod at him. "Don't you worry. You'll help me sweep and mop the floors later. I'll get you another dinner, you just stay right here."

"Okay, ma'am," he muttered and settled at the edge of the bench seat.

The next few days passed in much the same fashion. Nick loitered in the parking lot until Beverly called him in. Ben would grumble, and his complaints fell on deaf ears as Nick worked off the meal Beverly paid for. His stomach kept the guilt at bay.

"Nicholas," Beverly said a few days into the odd routine, "I have a few things at the house that need to be done. How are you at cleaning gutters?"

He nodded from where he was mopping up a spilled milkshake, and despite the butterflies in his stomach he got into the car with her after her shift.

It was dangerous to ride in cars with strangers, he knew that, but the driver looked like a nice enough guy. Nick chewed on his lip for a moment before the man leaned across the seat and raised one shaggy blond brow at him. "You want a ride or not, boy?"

Overhead the sky rumbled and a cold blast of hair shot off the highway. Nick shouldered his bag and climbed up into the passenger's side of the big rig. The driver smirked as he set the rig into motion. "So kid," he drawled with a heavy southern twang, "ever drive a stick shift?"

"And we know that God will always take care of us," said the radio as it snapped on. "No matter how dark it gets, his loving arms will always keep us safe."

"How nice," Beverly smiled, "I love this station."

Nicholas shut the car door and belted himself in. He kept his hands knotted on his knees, and if Beverly noticed she didn't say anything. At the end of the ride was ranch-style house in the middle of a rotting suburb with packed gutters, knee-high grass and a platoon of mangy cats mewling at the door.

Beverly lead the march up to the porch as she shook out her keys. "I have a mower, just so you know. It's an old thing, and Henry just isn't able to push it anymore. I keep meaning to do something about this, but there just never seems to be enough time."

"I can." Nick stared at the porch as she looked him over. But he didn't miss her smile.

She left the door open and Nick drifted in after the cats had had a sniff at him. The living room was covered in pink and doilies, and thousands of photographs. Nick shut the door behind him and lifted a picture frame from a side table. A girl about his age smiled on the front steps. She boasted a black eye and split lip, but she seemed happy. Nick put it back between the two frames it'd been beside.

A cough across the room made him jump.

In the light spilling from the kitchen--where Beverly was humming to the sound of a cat food on tin--Nick could see the old man huddled like an ancient turtle underneath a lump of blankets. A walker stood beside him, and the chair he was in let loose an electronic hum as it sat forward another inch. The man, Henry Nick wagered, stuck his head out a little further and squinted at him.

"Bev, you pick up another hussy?"

"Henry, you hush," the woman clucked as she returned to the living room. She set her arms akimbo as she gave her husband an amused glare, then turned those sharp eyes onto Nick. "Nicholas is here to help us with our house, aren't you, dear?"

"Yes ma'am," he frowned and hunched his shoulders as Henry glowered at him.

"Nicholas, huh?" Henry snorted. "Too much hair for a boy."

The stench of peppermints wafted upon the air; his grandmother laughed in his ear. The pile of blankets moved and the TV snapped on again. News channel.

Beverly's fingers tugged at Nicholas' jacket and she lead him into a hallway. More pictures lined the walls here, hundreds of different faces and ages. She leaned into an open doorway and clicked on a light switch. "You can sleep here. I laid out some clothes from Henry's old things, and the bathroom is right inside to the left."

Nick's mouth went dry at the sight of the bed laid out with a pair of flannel pajamas on the end. It looked warm and inviting, but his feet stuck to the floor.

Fingers went up to his hair, plucking at the lumps in it. "Mm," Beverly hummed and sighed. "We may have to shave this, dear."

"Do we _have_ to?" he whispered and one hand lifted to clutch at the locks. Beverly's lips pressed to a line.

After a long moment, she shook her head. "No, we'll work something out. Just get it good and washed up, okay?" He forced his feet to lift and hurried toward the bathroom. Behind him, the bedroom door closed and Beverly's footsteps retreated down the hall. Nick locked the bathroom door before he started the shower.

It took three days to get his hair untangled and cleansed. Three days of mowing, and old leaves, and hot showers. He learned anew to itch when he was dirty and of sleep brought by a full stomach. It was heaven.

In the back of the house there was a garden that needed tending and a garage half fallen-in with a tarp over the roof. Nicholas searched through the junk in the garage to find an old, rust-eaten hoe with which to break the winter-frozen soil.

Each tug on the hoe brought up more soil until what had been solid earth was a churned patch of loam and earthworms. They churned through the upturned soil, as though the ground itself were a living creature. The fat, rubber-like bodies were just a few shades lighter than the dirt that caked their naked bodies; they were far more interesting than the fat-jowled priest lecturing over a dozen tiny caskets. A set of dagger-tipped fingers clutched his hair.

Nick winced and looked up to where the sun obliterated his mother's face. Her finger's squeezed again and tugged until he was forced to face the most recent hole in the ground. A fresh-faced six-year-old stared at him from a blown-up photograph across the cherry wood coffin. Beside it, the boy's mother sobbed against her husband's chest.

Swallowing a lump in his throat, Nick winced at another scrape of her nails. He'd told them not to get onto the bus.

The pile of dirt snickered beneath it's tarp.

"Seeds are in the house."

He looked up to find Henry on the porch, walker held before him. One of the cats circled about the old man's feet, and he nudged it with an ancient slipper. "Bev likes her vegetables fresh."

Henry turned, as if to leave, and then hesitated. He eyed Nick through a pair of thick-framed glasses, before his sight turned down to the upturned soil. "Ain't a bad job."

"My grandmother had a garden," Nick shrugged.

"Did she now." Henry shook his head to some unspoken comment and nudged the cat away again. "Come on, I'll show you the bags."

Careful not to step on the worms, Nick followed Henry into the storage and wash room at the back of the house. In the back corner were a few bags of seeds, each labeled with a picture of the grown plant and a few hand-scratched instructions. Nick knelt before them and picked through to find the right ones for the season. Corn, definitely, and potatoes. Henry stood over him, but didn't offer a word.

When he had the ones he needed, Nick lifted them to carry outside. He passed Henry, and stepped carefully over the cat that had sprawled itself in his path. Outside he began to plot out the lay of the garden.

Corn in the back, furthest from the steps, and potatoes in the front. He'd leave room for tomatoes and carrots and lettuce later in the spring. With the butt-end of the hoe, he punched holes for the seeds.

"Each spot gets three," Elenore grated from her chair, and she slurped a sidecar. "One for us, one for luck, and one for the birds."

The screen door swung shut with a screech and Helen huffed, "I want my son." Her neat curls were frizzed and a hair clip swung from the bottom of the mass, forgotten to impatience.

"That's a new tune," Elenore wheezed a cackle, "Should have considered that a year ago."

"You have no right to keep him anymore. Nicholas, get up. We're leaving."

Nick looked to Elenore, who smiled a dragon's smile. He ducked his head and went back to work. "The boy knows where he belongs," Elenore said and he could hear the grin in her voice. "Run away, Helen. It's what you wanted."

"I'm his mother."

"You're a whore," Elenore put a cigarette between her lips and lit it. "And you want to make the boy into a whore. I won't allow that."

"It is not _whoring_ , it's--"

"Television. Same thing, these days." The puff of smoke through her nostrils only furthered her reptilian appearance, and in a curious twist of the light, her eyes seemed to gleam. "How much are they going to pay you, hm? How much is your son's life worth?"

Nick's fingers clutched at the dirt. A crow landed on the ground beside him and pecked at the seeds by his hands. It looked him in the eye and had no fear. "Fine, Ellen. You'll get your cut."

He hissed, staring down at the blood that dripped down the splintered handle.

"What did you do?" Beverly gasped as she trotted down the porch and through the garden, the cats running before her. She took his wrists in her hands, and he dropped the remains of the handle. The scissors clattered to the tile with bits of his hair, but all that he could see was Helen's horrified face.

"What did you do?" She asked once again as the shock melted away. Her hands tightened about his wrists and she jerked him half off the floor. "You little asshole! How could you?"

One hand let him go to smack across his cheek. Nick knew better than to cry out. He bit his lip until he tasted blood, and stared at the hair-strewn floor.

She shook him like an earthquake, calling his name. He jerked his hands away, stumbling backward. He tripped over something sharp and fell. A roar blasted through his head, deafening him to the outside world. Clamping his hands over his ears, he rolled his face into the dirt as the wind whipped around him like a hurricane.

When it stopped there was nothing but cricket song and a morning chill creeping into his bones.

Nick pulled his shaking hands from his ears and listened to the noiseless night. When nothing further greeted him, he pushed himself up to sit in the dirt. The pieces of handle were scattered nearby and there wasn't a cat in sight.

He frowned at the upturned earth, then turned to face the corpse at his feet. Her eyes were milky now, not green at all, and her face a horrified mask. Beyond her, another figure laid upon a blood-strewn porch. Littered around it were smaller bodies; all still, all staring.

Scrambling backward, Nick stared into those accusing eyes, at the clawed fingers that seemed to reach for him even in death.

That place had always smelt of faintly of decay. It was, in its own way, a comforting smell, for it was all he'd ever known. Pushing aside the door, the mountain of bottles behind it made a tinkling noise as they fell and he winced.

But the man on the mattress never moved.

Nick stared through the bedroom door and considered waking his father. It'd been days since he'd seen the man, he realized with a start. Looking at him now, still lying upon the bed in the same state as the morning before, he began to realize the odor was heavier now. It wasn't just must and alcohol and old food. There was something else.

Something like worms wriggling in dirt.

"No," he muttered and squeezed his eyes shut.

"Yes," whispered the corpse. His eyes snapped open to Beverly crouching translucent before him. Still as a rock, she stared from an inch away. Then her lips split apart, achingly slow, into a giant grin filled with thousands of razor-sharp teeth.

Tears streaming down his face, he found his feet and ran.

Through salt-blinded eyes he found himself lurching down a dark alley. It was strangely familiar, he thought, and far too close to Bev--

Nick swallowed hard and scrubbed his hand over his eyes. He blinked hard until they cleared, then looked up at the lighted head of the alley. A phone booth stood there, ringing. Above it was taped a familiar pink flyer.

Ignoring the tags scrawled on the alleyway, he stumbled forward until he fell against the phone booth. He reached up and took the receiver, putting it against his ear. "Help," he whispered to the other side. "I need help."

There was a long pause on the other end, and then a familiar voice replied, "Where are you?"

He didn't know where the address came from, but he rattled it off without a hesitation. Then the line went dead. Nick shuddered as a hand clamped down on his shoulder.

"Lookit what we got here," a mean voice sneered.

He squared his shoulders and turned to face his punishment. Overhead, the stars twinkled. _Karma_.

That was what they called it, he thought. Helen said that's what happened, at least. Bad people got their punishment; be it from their own hand or another's. Nick had always wondered if she meant his father, but she never said so.

They stood together, staring out at the audience of the talk show she'd booked for that morning, and he wondered what his karma would be like. Would he rot himself to death, like his dad, or sell himself for money like...

He looked up at his mom, her sharp eyes focused on the producer she'd been fucking. There wasn't any flinching for the word anymore, he'd heard them often enough. She didn't love the man, but he got their foot in the door, she said. Nick had to take care of the rest.

Just walk out there and tell the audience what you know, she said. But what did he know?

Looking at them now, he saw nothing imaginative. Fifty people who'd go of aging, two heaps of twisted metal, and one who was wasting as he sat there. Nick shuddered and turned away. It was the middle of the day and there were no stars to comfort him, but he pulled from his mother and headed for the door anyway.

"Bathroom," he muttered at her and she didn't care; she wouldn't until he wasn't there when she wanted him.

Around the corner and out the back door, already open for a smoking stagehand who could care less that his lungs were already filled with tar.

That was what he was good for wasn't it? Running away.

He landed in a sticky black ooze dripping from the dumpster. The boys laughed, the smoker choking a little on his own dying lungs, and the heaviest set of the lot gave his side another kick. Bored now, they turned and walked off and on their way. Nick hunched into the shadow of the dumpster to remain until they'd gone.

Nick roused from a dizzy sleep to the sound of sneakers on pavement. He flinched away and squeezed himself further into the small shadow of the dumpster. The footsteps paused, then moved a little closer.

"Kid?" said that familiar voice. Hardly daring, he leaned forward just enough to see the boy standing near the head of the alley. He was a dark silhouette against the flickering light of the lamppost, but Nick knew at once it was the kid from the helpline. The kid also seemed to see him, for his stance shifted and he edged closer.

Slowly, as though approaching a wild animal, the boy came. He knelt a few feet from him and reached out a mostly steady hand.

"I can save you," he whispered softly, seeming as unsure of himself as Nick was, "If you want me to."


	4. Watched You Fall

### Keanu

March 2009. Houston, Tx; USA.

  
The moon was a pure white disk, shedding silver light upon the earth below. Not a cloud obscured it, no whisper of wind blew. Everything lay still, dormant, as though the earth and trees all together held their breath, waiting for the blow to fall.

"There's a monster on the moon."

Keanu bolted out of bed, the harsh whisper still ringing in his ears. For a moment there existed only the sound of his ragged panting, before the gentle thwaf, thwaf, thwaf of the overhead fan returned. Other sounds followed slowly: the rustle of his bedsheets, a scrape of leaf against the window, the distant hum of traffic in the bayou metropolis.

Sweat sealed his sheets to his naked skin. Keanu shivered faintly, and pushed the bedclothes away. He began to swing his legs over the side of the bed, then stopped to stare the floor. His heart hammering against his ribs, he put one foot slowly to the bare wood, then the other. When nothing happened, he let out a shaky laugh and swiped his hand against his eyes.

"Idiot," he muttered at himself and groaned against his palms. Blindly, he reached for the lamp and his fingers tangled into someone's scalp.

Keanu jumped to his feet with a yelp, and stumbled about to stare at the empty air next to his bed.

Backing slowly from hit, he didn't stop until his back bumped the bedroom door. Nothing in the room moved, save the fan and the curtains swayed by the draft. He eyed them nervously, and dared to peer at the darkness beyond his bedroom window. The moon hung brightly beyond, visible through the naked branches of early spring.

Something giggled in his closet. Keanu thumped the wall until he found the switch for the overhead, and flicked it quickly.

"Just a dream," he reminded himself when the light reveled nothing but his plain, ordinary bedroom. With a shake of his head, he moved cautiously toward the bed. "Just a fucking dream."

He couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten a full night's sleep, and he'd never been one to fall asleep in class. These days he stared at the chalkboard, uncomprehending, as a teacher babbled on her lecture over the disinterested chatter of inattentive students. The only ones who cared were with him in the front row, listening as they scribbled notes. Occasionally they would glance at him, and when Keanu noticed he would wonder if they knew about his slipping grades.

Each class was the same, all blurring together until that final bell rang and he was freed to the mercy of the crowded school hallways. Keanu found his way to his locker by sheer routine and fumbled the lock open. Most of the locker was already filled with books and folders. He shoved his backpack on top of them, forcing it into place, and paused only to make certain that he had his keys and wallet. 

With a promise to himself that he'd do his homework first thing in the morning, he slammed the door shut again and slid the bolt home. 

"You look like hell," Johnson growled from his desk as Keanu walked into the Youth Link offices a quarter after four. Keanu glanced over the man's Cheetos-stained beater and bit his tongue.

"Sorry I'm late," he offered instead as he trudged between the dual rows of call stations to find his usual seat, "There was traffic."

"It's Houston; there's always traffic." 

Keanu flopped into a worn out rolling chair. He felt Johnson's eyes still upon him, but he wheeled himself up to the desk proper and tried not to care. "I'm worried about you, Kenny-boy," the man announced a moment later. "Maybe you oughta sit this one out."

"I'm fine." Keanu spared a quick glance at Johnson in time to see the man shake his head. Johnson turned to face forward as his line rang. "Youth Link." Johnson's voice dropped into an indecipherable murmur from that point, so that only the person on the call could hear what they were saying. Glad for the respite, Keanu opened the weary log book on his desk and penciled in his arrival time.

He'd begun working as a volunteer for the Youth Link over two years ago. Though he’d been offered a paid administrative position when he’d turned sixteen, Keanu had rejected it--he preferred to work with the callers, and the paperwork he’d gladly do for free. That hadn’t stopped their boss from hiring Johnson, anyway. Staring at Johnson’s back, Keanu detested the ember of jealousy that still glowed inside of him. There was no reason for it, he knew, but it existed all the same.

His pencil tapped a tune-less staccato against the paper, his sight blurring the words into indefinable scribbles. A light lit on the phone switchboard and he grabbed the receiver. “Youth Link.”

“Hi...” The voice at the other end was familiar in its timidity. Keanu shut his eyes as the familiar, disturbing quiet settled into him.

“Hi,” he replied softly. “How are you?”

“I’m okay,” they sobbed. 

It was well past midnight when he hung up for the final time that night. Rubbing at his temples, he looked up to see Johnson standing over him. In another moment, Keanu had been shoved out the door, the office locked behind him. He snorted and trudged to his car, trying not to yawn.

"It was a dark and stormy night," Keanu muttered as he trotted up the driveway to his house ten minutes later. The sky rumbled above him. At the door he fumbled with his keys, found the right one, and twisted the lock open right before the heavens let loose. 

Keanu shook his drenched head as he stepped inside and relocked the door. He pulled his jacket off and hung it by the door, then shook himself from head to toe.

The house was silent, save a dull chime of a clock from the den. Relying on the storm to cover his passage, Keanu slipped his shoes off and then carried them with him up the stairs. He tip-toed down the corridor to his room and slipped inside to shut it with only the barest whisper of sound. Breathing a sigh of relief, he set his shoes by his door and crossed the lightning-lit room, shedding his clothes behind him. 

He mixed the shower temperature by route, and climbed in. It was hissing hot, but after a second under the spray it began to feel good. One by one his muscles relaxed. Keanu leaned against the cool tile and let the water beat upon his back. 

Sometimes he’s just angry, you know. I mean, it ain’t his fault an all, it’s his job. He’s always sorry.

It’s just a feeling. Like a tug, says I should do it. But I can’t, right? I shouldn’t. My mom, my dad...it wouldn’t be fair.

What is fair?

It doesn’t matter. 

A lump caught in his throat. He bit his lip until it bled, but still the quiet sobs came. 

It was still dark when he jolted from bed. Overhead the fan circled in gentle thwafs, rattling softly against its anchor. Keanu scrubbed his hands through his short dark hair and cast a baleful eye at dark window. Outside, through the dark tree limbs, hung the full face of the moon.

He swallowed convulsively against a sandpaper throat, and winced. Sliding from between the sheets, he made his way to the door and slipped into the silent hallway. The marble tile was cold under his bare feet, even in the humid air around him. It had always surprised him, the heat here. From a distance this place looked barren, frigid. 

The columns that rose on either side of him were cracked and he eyed them warily. A few tendrils of dust fell from the ancient beams, stirred by some draft he couldn’t feel far below. To his left were bushes head-high that blocked out any sight of the battle field beyond, but he could smell it: the raw, hot carnage of spilled entrails and festering wounds. Somewhere a horse cried out in agony. There was no sound of the men.

She stood before him on the stairs, long hair streaming around her like a living thing. In her hand a crystal glowed. A sliver of light appeared upon her forehead, opening like a sore. His fingers tightened upon his sword and he rushed for the sorceress.

Those eyes were so blue.

Keanu gasped and shook his sopping wet head. He batted the water from his eyes and reached, blindly, for the shower knobs. The water died with a squeal; he climbed from the tub upon weak legs and sat upon its edge for a long moment. It was only when the air conditioner kicked on that Keanu shook himself bodily and grabbed the nearby towel from its rack.

When he was reasonably dry, he tucked the towel about his waist and stumbled to the sink. Bracing his hands on the counter, Keanu stared for a long moment, uncomprehending, at his toothbrush. He must have fallen, or...or something, he decided after a long moment. 

The mirror was covered in fog, and he wiped his arm against it to clear a space. Keanu stopped in reaching for his toothbrush to stare at the man-child reflected to him. Though the dark skin remained his, and the body lean and coltish, there was something wrong with his eyes. Leaning closer, Keanu inspected his irises and thought them to be a bit lighter than normal. He shook his head and stood upright.

With his teeth brushed and fresh boxers on, Keanu collapsed onto his bed and let the world melt away.

“Keanu.”  
  
He groaned at the woman standing over him and buried his head a little further under his pillow. Abida grabbed it away and swatted him with it. “Keanu,” she repeated and tossed the pillow to the foot of his bed, “Get up. You’re late.”

“What?”

“Late. It is nine o’clock!” 

The words hit home, and Keanu jumped up. He moaned, then, wincing at the bright sunlight streaming in his window, and fell back down on to the bed. “God.”  
  
Abida ‘tsk’ed at him as she glanced about his room at the clothes he’d left on the floor. “You were late again, were you not?”

“No.” He rubbed his face and then peeked through his fingers at her.

The small, dark woman gazed down at him, an imposing figure despite her size. Her hair had been bundled back behind her hijab, a sure sign that she was about to leave the house, and she folded her arms across her matching sweater. “Do not lie to me.”  
  
“I’m not. I got in early. I’m just,” a yawn, “tired. Sorry. It won’t happen again.”

Abida continued to watch him for a long moment. Keanu’s eyes dropped slowly to the carpet. Then, finally, she touched his hair and left him alone to dress. Minutes later, the front door shut, and her car started in the drive below. Keanu squeezed his eyes shut.

A shrill ringing in one ear tossed him back into reality. He lifted his head from his arms long enough to grab the phone and press the light upon the switchboard.

“Youth Link Hotline.”

He scrubbed one eye, cradling the phone to his hear with his opposite shoulder, and waited for the person on the other end to say something. There was breathing on the other line, faint instead of heavy, as though the person didn’t want to be noticed. Keanu frowned. “It’s okay if you aren’t ready to talk,” he said after a few minutes had gone by, “We're glad you called."

"Y'don't even know why..."

Something deep with Keanu seemed to go still. He dropped his hand as all tiredness faded from his body. “It doesn't matter, right now, where you are or how you got there. You called. That's the hardest part."

"Sure it is," the boy sighed. Keanu couldn’t escape the feeling that he knew this voice from somewhere. An old schoolmate? A neighbor? He didn’t want to think so, but the certainty was too strong. " That's the hardest part."

"Care to offer a different opinion?" 

"Yeah, I do." 

Most of it, sadly, was nothing he hadn’t heard before. Months, maybe even years, on the street had left the kid hard, bitter. Keanu listened with tempered horror at the matter of fact recounting of being beaten, spat on, shamed. As he listened, Keanu picked up a pen and drew loose circles on one of the center’s hot pink flyers. 

“Ya think you have it all behind ya, but then...there it is again, right’n front-a you. Don’t matter what way ya run, cause it’ll always find ya. Wear you down. Make you do it.” 

“It makes you do what?”

“Whatever.” The kid laughed, like a rustle of autumn leaves. “Make you fight, make you leave, make you take something you don’t want. Sometimes its for good, y’know, knows kind of what it’s doing. Not always though.”  
  
Keanu frowned at the sheet of paper he’d been scribbling on. What had been a nest of scribbled ink had turned into a shape that tugged upon his memory. Columns...

“You sound like this... feeling is alive.”

“Maybe it is. Maybe...”

A cold knife worked its way into Keanu’s stomach. “There’s a monster on the moon?” The whisper hung against his ear, even as it came out his mouth. 

“Why did you say that?”

“I heard it somewhere before,” Keanu muttered. 

There was a pause, a rustle. “Ain’t nothin up there but stars,” the boy muttered, finally. The line went dead. With the tone still ringing in his ears, Keanu set the receiver upon its cradle and balled the drawing into one fist. He looked up to see a hazy dawn outside the center’s doors, and Johnson asleep over his desk.

The sky was growing orange and his mother was sipping her coffee at the kitchen counter, reading the morning paper, when he slipped in the back door. Keanu stopped at the end of the counter, hands stuffed in his pockets, and stared at her.

After another careful drought of steaming coffee, Abida set her mug down and gave the paper a slight shake to loosen the crease at its middle. "I do not imagine that it is early for you, Keanu James."

"No, ma'am, it's not," he scuffed his toe against the tile.

"Mm." The oven timer dinged and Abida set the paper down to rescue a tray of muffins.

"So," she said when she'd shut the oven door. "Where were you?"

Keanu eyed the newspaper and considered lying. It was the first response of every teenager, he knew, but he'd never seen any reason for it. Until now. "With a friend," he stated and winced. It was stretching the truth, he told himself, not technically a lie.

Acid at the back of his throat told him otherwise, and he swallowed the sting of it. Keanu went to the cabinet to get a glass; milk sounded like a good idea right now.

"A night which lasted far too late," Abida leaned one slender hip against the counter and crossed her arms. Her eyes were like a hawk's upon the back of his neck, and it was all Keanu could do to keep himself steady. "Even for a Saturday. I do not like you to be out without informing us."

"I'm sorry, I should have called," he ducked his head as he dared a glance in her direction. The set of her shoulders loosened a little and she intercepted him upon the way to the refrigerator. Slim fingers took the glass from him, and she pushed him toward the counter with a gentle hand.

"Sit," she said and pulled the door open. "You will have breakfast and then sleep."

"Yes ma'am," he tried to ignore the rolling of his stomach and did as told, taking the end stool at the counter. "But...Dad doesn't like--"

"You will have extra chores this evening, to make up for it," Abida replied as she poured a glass of milk and retrieved the butter, "I will make your excuses for you this morning."

"Thanks." He took the glass and watched as she pulled a muffin from the tray to fix for him. Any other day he would have enjoyed being up early enough to get one fresh, today he wasn't sure if he'd make it through a whole one. 

"Keanu." The boy jerked and looked up to see his mother staring at him with worry written upon her face. The buttered muffin was on a plate in front of him, and she frowned as if she'd asked his name several times.

"Sorry," he smiled a little and broke a piece off with his fingers to eat it, "I just...I'm tired. It was a late night."

"Hm." Abida resettled upon her stool and picked her paper back up. Keanu shook his head and forced down another bite of muffin, and then another, and another... When the entire thing was gone, he got up to clean his dish.

"I am worried,” his mother said as he finished, “You spent an inordinate amount of time at that Center."

"I was just--"

"I know what you 'you were just,'" she warned and lifted her gaze from the paper. "But that does not make me worry any less. You are only a boy, Ken, you must remember that."

"I do.” Keanu shuffled his feet and glanced behind him at the door. He tried not to feel the rock lodged in the bottom of his stomach.

Abida nodded. “Good night.”  
  
“...night.” 

He woke to laughter downstairs. Keanu groaned and pulled himself from the bed. The light outside was orange and with a start he realized he’d slept most of the day away. With care to be quiet, he hopped into an old pair of jeans and scooped a t-shirt off his floor to tug on over his beater.

Keanu paused by a hallway mirror only long enough to card his fingers once through his hair and then tiptoed down the stairs to the first floor.

The noise was coming from the study, just off the main hall before the family room. Keanu loved that room--it was filled with books, including a collection of antique Qur’ans, and an oaken desk that they kept polished to a shine. His mother had decorated it with Indian carpets, and two Victorian couches reupholstered with oriental silk. Despite this strange mix, or perhaps because of it, Keanu found the room delightful.

He approached the door on the balls of his feet, carefully skipping over a tile that he knew would squeak. The voices sorted themselves out: his mother and father, a British woman and two Japanese speakers for whom she was translating. 

“We’re very honoured that Mr. Tanaka would include us in his plans,” Abida said as he reached the doorway. Keanu peeked around it to see his parents perched upon one of the couches. 

An angel sat across from them. Her Asian heritage-- Chinese, Japanese, Korean? he flustered--was undeniable, yet confused by natural-looking blond hair and blue eyes. When she smiled it seemed like sunshine embodied. 

“Ishii Enterprises,” the angel corrected Abida with a gentle smile, “We are most honoured to have you with us.”

Of her two companions, one was equally lovely: a small, dark woman in a sharp business suit. She didn’t strike him in the same, stomach-lurching way and for that Keanu was grateful. The third was an older gentleman, balding and with generous laugh-lines about his eyes. 

“If there is anything else you we can offer...”  
  
The angel glanced toward the man on her right--Mr. Tanaka, Keanu assumed. After a short discussion in their native tongue, the angel offered Keanu a smile. “Another reason we brought these plans to you was that...well, Mrs. Nassar, you are well known for your charity work here in Houston. I thought that, perhaps, you may have some recommendations for an assistant whom could help me organize this event. We are having some trouble finding anyone with the right skills.”

“Hm,” Abida pursed her lips. “I’m afraid I’ve not had too much dealings with charity auction--most of my work is with relief operations.”  
  
“I can.” 

Five sets of eyes turned to stare at him--none of them mattered but the blue. “I know most of the other charities here, and a great many of the usual donors. While I do have school in the mornings, I get out earlier than most due to a free work period. I’ve also helped to organize events for Youth Link, where I volunteer, the local soup kitchen, and the Big Brother chapter.”

“Ah,” said his father. Rashad’s bushy, salt-and-pepper eyebrows rose a few millimeters as he cleared his throat. “You’ve met Allan, our eldest,” he said to his comrades, “This is our other boy, Keanu.”

“You have a very extensive portfolio, Mr. Keanu Nassar.” The angel inclined her head to him, an amused smile dashed across her painted lips. Beside her, the gentleman uttered a quick question. After a moment spent in their mother tongue, the angel nodded and returned her attention to his parents. 

“He’s ambitious as well. This must run in the family?”  
  
Rashad puffed his chest a little. “He’s a good lad. Bright, too. I’ve been meaning to put him to work as clek, but he’s more inclined to these matters.”  
  
“Well.” The angel gave him a sidelong look. He didn’t know why, but even so calculating a look seemed friendly, somehow. “I think I’d like to take him up on that offer. If there is no objection.”  
  
“None,” Rashad said immediately. Abida frowned and picked up the tea tray she had on the coffee table. She left the room quietly, at an even pace. 

The three from Ishii Enterprises rose as one, and the angel moved forward to offer her hand to Keanu. He took it and jumped as a bolt of electricity sprang through his body, leaving him gasping.  
  
“Keanu!” He shook himself as his father’s sharp voice hit home. The angel was still staring at him, all traces of amusement gone from her face. They were still holding hands. He dropped hers and backed away a pace.

“My apologies, ma’am...”  
  
“Aino,” she corrected. “Aino Minako.”

“Ms. Aino.” He whispered. They left him in the study as Rashad saw them to the door. Their car roared to life in the drive outside. He turned and found himself staring at his reflection in the hallway mirror. 

His hair was white as bone and blood soaked his battle torn armor. The illusion was gone almost as soon as it had been, and he was left a scrawny child in dirty pants and an old beater. 

Rashad Nassar was not happy. Though Keanu’s “internship” had appeased him, somewhat, there was still a price to be paid for appearing bed-tousled before his father’s business partners. That was eked out in a stern dressing down and a Sunday filled with garbage, yard work, and cleaning his mother’s car. Keanu suffered through this in silence, trying to pretend that he didn’t notice Abida’s silence.

On Sunday evening, as he was getting ready to go to the Center, Abida appeared at his bedroom door.   
  
“You are going to tell them to cut your hours back, yes?” Her hands clasped before her, and she stared at him evenly. 

“I figure I can still work nights a bit. A couple days a week,” he shrugged, “After I find out the hours at Ishii.”

Abida pursed her lips. She closed the distance between them and touched a cold hand to his cheek. “No. You need to quit.”

“Mom!” Keanu frowned and pulled away. He grabbed his bag from the bed. “I’m not going to quit. They need me.”  
  
“They have others.”

“Not enough. Not many. I can’t just turn my back on them, I gave my word.”

“You give your word for much these days,” Abida murmured. She shook her head. “This is too much for a boy your age.”  
  
“I can handle it.” Keanu squared his jaw and for a moment their eyes locked. It was Abida who looked away first.

“If you are so confident, then I will allow you to try. If I see one sign that this is getting out of control--”

“What signs?”

“--grades slipping, a call from your school, another night coming in at three A.M. Any of these things. You must promise me that you will stop all of this immediately.”

He ground his teeth. “And if I don’t?” Abida’s sharp, black eyes met his again. A chill ran down his spine, and he ducked his head. “Yes, mother. I promise.”

“Good. I shall hold you to this.”  
  
She swept past him, the soft silk of her scarf brushing his arm. Keanu waited until her steps dwindled down the hall, then ran to his car.

Ishii Enterprises was housed in a brand new brownstone office building just outside of Montrose. Keanu had expected a glass skyscraper--this had trees, and grass, and was freshly painted a warm adobe colour. The inside was just as welcoming: brilliant landscape paintings, flowers, and a smiling woman behind a large, marble-topped receptionist’s desk. 

“Hi, I’m here to see Ms. Aino,” he told her. “Keanu Nassar.”

The secretary nodded and after a short consolation with her intercom, she waved him on through to the elevator. “Fifth floor, second office to the right.”

Keanu nodded and hefted his schoolbag onto his shoulder. The elevators were at the end of a long corridor lined with offices, photos and more paintings. There were no posters indicating what the company did, or showing off past accomplishments like most other office buildings he’d ever been in--not that he could think of any sort of poster a security company might post.

He punched the button for the fifth floor and hummed along to the soft pop playing on the speaker until the doors opened again. Her office door was open and he could see her from the halll, her golden hair spilling down her shoulders as she typed furiously on a laptop. Keanu’s sweaty hands twisted the strap of his backpack. Pausing at the door, he forced one of them to disengage and rap against the jamb.

Aino looked up and flashed him a smile that only seemed half forced. She gestured to the seat across from her desk. “Ah, Mr. Nassar! And much more rested I see.”

Keanu took the offered chair and settled his bag between his feet. “Yeah,” he breathed and chuckled at himself. “Sorry about that, the other day, I was...”

“I’m only teasing,” Aino replied with a cheeky wink. All traces of her discomfort had disappeared causing Keanu to wonder if he’d just been misreading. “I’m glad to see you! I was just beginning to take a look over the locations...” She paused, then looked at him, “Why don’t you bring that chair around so you can see? We have a few lists to go over as well, and then I can show you the phone systems.”

He got up and drug a chair to her side of the desk. His skin tingled at the idea of being so close to her, but the sight of spreadsheets and price lists and inventories soon threw all other thoughts from his head. There was a battle plan to be made.

The ground underneath his feet was uneven, mushy. All around him the word registered in metal clangs and clacks, the moans, and screams. A horse ran past him, its entrails streaming between its legs with its rider’s legs tangled into them. 

His arm moved of its own accord, the heavy sword slashing and jabbing; men fell at his feet like broken dolls. He didn’t know how long ago he’d last seen his companions--minutes, hours, days? The field was a blur of silver regalia, he alone a rock of earthen green in the enemy’s ocean. Yet the tide did not drown him. 

There was a life line of energy that fed him, starting from his boots and travelling up into his arms. It beat back all weariness, all complaint. He could live forever.

Then it was over. There was no more silver in sight, but no green either. The field was a mass of dead and dying.

He looked down, to the ground which fed him, and met the eyes of the man he was standing in.

The nightmares came with every close of his eyes. Every night, every stolen nap, every time he rested his head upon his desk and hoped to god that no one noticed--those eyes were there, watching him. They were different shades of blue--cornflower, pale as a robin’s egg, deep as Sapphire, clouded with death--but all accusing.

“You’ve been coming in here a lot lately,” the girl behind the Starbucks counter smiled. He offered her a ghost of the same and his debit card. She handed over a cardboard try of lattes. “That’s what... every day for two weeks now?”

“My boss likes your coffee,” he shrugged. “It’s an addiction, you know.”

“I’m glad to hear that. We like seeing you,” she replied with a wink. When she handed his card and receipt back, there was a phone number scrawled upon it. He tried to put a little more effort into a smile and carried the drinks out the door.

Aino was on the phone when he got back to the office. Whatever was going on it didn’t sound pleasant; she tapped her pen in furious procession upon her desk, glared at the phone as though it would care, and didn’t once look up at his entry. Whomever she was chewing out, she was doing so in Japanese and Keanu didn’t understand a word of it. He set her latte before her and took his seat to the side.

She grabbed it, chugging it despite the heat during an intermission in her lecture. Then, after a few final words, she dropped the phone back on the receiver and put her face in one hand. 

“Are you okay?” Keanu asked, looking up at her. 

“I’m fine.” Aino replied, offering him a smile with her eyes still closed. She took another sip, then fixed him with her beautiful, cornflower blue stare. “How about you, Mr. baggy eyes?”

“Golden,” he replied around a yawn. “I can sleep when I’m dead.”

She didn’t say a word to that, but Keanu thought he saw a small frown. He picked up another stack of papers and took out his cell phone. He had acquisition calls to make, and a band to book. Besides, he rationalized, he could sleep over the weekend.

"Did you get your homework done?" His mother asked as he bumped his sneakers off on the back stoop. Keanu sighed and scratched his sweat-ichy hair. The Saturday afternoon sun still beat down heavy on the backyard, despite it being early February, and he felt chilled in the air conditioning. Closing the door behind him, Keanu stretched and hooked joined hands behind his head.

"Yes, ma'am, I got it done," he called back after a moment.

"Do not take that tone with me."

Abida didn't argue, however, and he sighed relief through his nose. From the couch, his brother, Allen, snickered. Turning to face him, Keanu raised a brow and took a few steps toward the sofa. He didn't dare sit down--not with the sweat making his shirt cling to his body--but he glanced at what his brother was watching. Some stupid MTV thing. "You still watch this stuff?"

"It's brainless," Allen shrugged. "Trust me, you need that ever so often."

Keanu snorted. 

"So," Allen continued with a conspiratory smirk, "You wanna go out with me tonight? Some friends and I are hitting that new club--"

“I have work, Al.”

“Right, right. The Center. How could you give that up for a night?” Allen shook his head. Keanu narrowed his eyes; he’d have tried more, but he’d learned long ago that nothing good would come of hitting his brother, not even in play. Unlike Keanu, Allen was tall and muscular, not at all like any stereotype one normally associated with accountants. 

"People need help."

"I guess," Allen shrugged and turned the TV off. He scrubbed Keanu's hair on his way past and tossed the remote at him. "Take a shower, you smell like a sewer."

Keanu caught the device. He held it for a long moment, watching as his brother disappeared up the stairs, then chunked the remote at the couch. He didn’t notice the TV snap on as he marched away.

There was something giggling in his closet. Keanu stared at the door as imaginary flickers of light played over his vision. His eyes were dry and scratchy, his head felt like a pillow, and the goddamn closet wouldn’t stop giggling. 

“There’s a monster on the moon,” it told him.

He growled and put a pillow over his head.

Every time he turned in his homework he just got more to do. That used to seem normal, some small part of his brain informed him. The rest was just angry.   
  
He stuffed the new papers into his bag haphazardly and slung it over his shoulder as the bell rang. Pushing past the other students, he was the first out the door and to his locker. “What’s your problem?” one of the cheerleaders snapped as he shoulder-checked her in the hallway.

“Fuck off, that’s my problem,” he snapped. A nearby teacher turned to stare.

I try so hard to do what they want, to be the person they want me to be, but it’s like they never even notice. I’m invisible. I’ve been invisible for years. What would be the difference if I did it?

Keanu jolted into consciousness. The phone rang again and he grabbed it. “Youth Link Hotline,” he mumbled into the receiver.

“Check again, bro.”  
  
“Allen?” Keanu yawned.

“Yeah. Where are you, bud?”

The boy frowned and sat up to stare at his steering wheel. He glanced around, blinking as the world sorted itself out into the orange cast of sunset. The tiny, familiar parking lot of the Center was filled by his car and two of the other volunteer’s vehicles. Other than him there didn’t seem to be anyone about. “Uh, work. Sorry. What’s up?”

“Really now? Cause they called me. Said you didn’t turn up for your shift.”

“Fuck,” he spat and reached for the book-bag in the passenger seat.

His brother laughed, “Wow. That was new. When did you start doing that?”

“You say worse.” Keanu took the key out of his ignition and opened the door. Why they hadn’t bothered checking the parking lot, he didn’t know. Johnson probably couldn’t be bothered to get up off his fat ass.

“Yeah, but that’s me.” There was a rattle of paper on the other side. “Just be glad they didn’t call mom. So where are you really?”  
  
“I’m at work.” He slammed his car door and threw his bag over one shoulder.   
  
“You’re two hours late, how did--”  
  
“Look, I fell asleep okay? Is that a crime now?” 

“Hey, that isn’t like you. That’s all I mean by this, a’ight? I’m just worried.”

Stopping before the double doors of the building, Keanu sighed and nodded. He scuffed his heel against the pavement. “Yeah. Sorry. I haven’t been sleeping too well lately.”

“Oh yeah?”

He pursed his lips and shrugged, though his brother couldn’t see. “It’ll sort itself out or something. Just need more sun, maybe.”

“Alright. Well, I’ll see you this weekend, maybe? You’re not over at Ishii on weekends, right?”  
  
“Right. But I still have--”

“The Center. I know, I know. Dude, you really need to take breaks sometimes, yanno. You can’t keep doing this.”

“I’ve been doing this for three weeks, I can finish another two of it.” Keanu shook his head. “Look, I’m already late. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Right. Bye.”

Keanu hung the phone up and headed through the double doors. Johnson was already staring at him, looking fit to kill. Fighting the urge to roll his eyes, Keanu went to take the bull by its horns.

It was always hard to argue with him. For starters, the man was completely unreasonable. 

He stood with his peers beneath the dais, looking up at their fuming Liege. Though he didn’t see their faces, he could feel them at his back--their presence, united in this moment--was a comfort. For once it was not he, alone, who cautioned their lord against his lunacy.   
  
The man above was scowling. One of his companions whispered that there was hate in those deep blue eyes, and he trusted that opinion though he wasn’t sure as to why. Hate, where once there had only been love.

“A monster?” the man sneered at them. He shook his head, and his laugh was demonic. “Tell me, are you children again to bring me such stories? I’d thought you smarter than all that hearsay.”

“My Lord, if you would only listen--”  
  
“I will listen when the lot of you speak sense,” the princeling snapped. “Obviously, I have spoiled you with informality. From this moment on you will respect your station  and mine. We are not equals, nor have we ever have been.”

Though insulted, he did not move. How could he? The uncomfortable reality was that the words were true. Truth did not stop the lurch of his stomach or the acid burning at the back of his throat.

Keanu reached for the toilet handle and flushed the remains of his lunch away. He groaned as he sat back on his knees and swiped his wrist over his mouth. When his stomach settled upon itself, he found his feet and lurched to the sink to wash himself.

There was a knock at the door. “Keanu?” Johnson asked.

“I’ll be out in a minute.”  
  
He opened the door onced he’d finished at the manager frowned down at him. “Boy, you get your ass home. Now.”

“I’m fine, I can still--”  
  
“No you fucking well can’t.” One meaty hand grabbed Keanu’s shoulder and pulled him out of the bathroom. With a hand to his back, Johnson guided Keanu toward the doors. Other volunteers looked on with mixed amusement and concern. 

Keanu growled and dug his heels in. “I am fine, dammit!”

“Right. And when did you start cursing at people?”  
  
“About the time you started pushing me around,” he snapped back and shoved the man away.

Johnson, mountain that he was, didn’t move an inch. The man shook his head. He grabbed Keanu’s arm again. “Boy, you do not want to start something with me today.”

Something ignited inside of him, like burning insects crawling beneath his skin. Keanu batted Johnson’s arm away and struck out with his other hand. His palm hit squarely against Johnson’s chest. The man flew backward, tumbling over one of the desk stations, taking a phone and desk chair with him. 

There was silence in the office, but for a single ringing phone line. Keanu grabbed his bag, picked up his keys off the counter, and ran from the office.

His phone rang before he was two blocks away. Keanu ignored it. He kept driving, unsure of where he was going, until he ended up at a gas station somewhere toward Sugarland. It was dark, pitch black, outside and there was no one about but he and the attendant. He stood outside the pump watching as the numbers spun upward and listening for his phone to ring; it hadn’t in hours.

The dial stopped, and he put the nozzle back on its mount. He was turning to open the car door when a flash of pink caught his eyes. Dropping to a stoop, Keanu scooped up a little ball of neon pink paper that had fallen against his toe. It was a Youth Link flier, he found with a twinge of guilt. About to throw it away, he turned it over and his heart skipped a beat.

There was a drawing on the back--a scribbled ink rendering of columns against a black sky. He felt a chill pass through him that had nothing to do with the spring wind. Crumbling it once again, Keanu tossed it into the nearby garbage can and climbed into his car. 

The phone rang.

He grabbed it and put it to his ear. “Youth Link Hotline,” he answered, and winced.

A rasping, familiar voice replied: “Help. I need help.”

Keanu stared at his steering wheel. He reached for his key, then, and fired the ignition. “Where are you?”

This was the dumbest thing he’d ever done. Of the four street lights erected along that particular stretch of urban Hell, only one was working. It lit the area around a derelict phone booth which Keanu wouldn’t have thought to be functional had he not just gotten a call from it. There was no one there now, save a stray cat pissing on the lamppost.

Keanu parked halfway down the block and killed the engine. His hand darted to the passenger seat to grab his cell phone, which ran almost the second he had touched it. He stared at the caller ID--Aino, Minako. They’d called his boss?

He got out of the car with a growl. Though he wasn’t sure what good it would do were he mugged, Keanu stuffed his keys into his pocket and took another look around. There wasn’t much of anything around--a bunch of old warehouses, some graffiti, old trash.

He squared his shoulders and shuffled toward the lamp post.

The alley reeked of rotting garbage and piss. A dumpster, near the street-end of the blind, light-less tunnel, was over flowing and wriggling with cats, rats, or maggots. The humid air carried the stench as well as the ocean carried drift would; Keanu’s eyes pricked with tears, and he shoved his arm against his mouth to fight the rising sickness.

It was almost enough to make him turn back.

A moan from the other end of the alley glued him to his course. Keanu peered into the void created between the dark, decrepit buildings. This was the perfect setting for a mugging, his mind informed him. If he should step into the alley, his rational half continued, he was certain to be set upon by hooligans, his money taken, and keys swiped. If he were lucky he might get away with a few bruises.

The moan sounded again. As though a string deep inside his chest had been tugged, Keanu’s feet plodded past the reeking canister of human filth, taking him with them.

“Kid?” he hissed. His voice died against the wet, clinging air. Keanu almost chocked on the taste of it.

Fighting sickness with all his might, he stared blindly into the inky black and willed the darkness brighter. Fire ants marched beneath his skin. To his surprise, it seemed to work.

Stupid. His eyes were adjusting, that was all it was...but there were walls once again, where there hadn’t been a moment before. A pile of what looked like trash huddled against the back corner. The smell of piss grew stronger the closer he came to it.

Keanu stopped in front of the heap of cloth, plastic, and human skin. He reached out a foot and nudged it.

One bony hand disentangled itself from the sopping wet rags to push at his hi-top. Keanu’s lips drew back into a sneer. Quickly he schooled his features and crouched before the boy.

A pair of hollow, green eyes met his own. Suddenly the alley was bright as day. Keanu could see the red-black skin around the boy’s eyes, the bloody mess of his nose, and the scrape on his chin. If that was what his face looked like, Keanu didn’t want to see the rest.

Grasping the boy’s shoulders, Keanu rubbed them--only to feel the boy flinch beneath his palms. Despite that, the kid’s face remained expressionless, hard. The string that had guided him now turned to stone. It rolled itself into a hard knot and settled at the pit of Keanu’s stomach. 

“I can save you,” he offered slowly, “if you want me to.”

Silence rang through the alley, as oppressive as the heat. The boy’s jaw tightened, his lips drawing into a deep set frown. For what seemed an eternity, Keanu watched unspoken thoughts play across the boy’s face.

His hand lifted, then, and Keanu took it. He hefted the boy to his feet and drew one arm under the boy’s shoulder. Without a word, they limped toward the car. The single, stuttering lamplight that lit the street seemed to urge them onward. As Keanu drove away, he saw it gutter in their wake.

The boy’s name was Nicholas Doyle. He was a year younger than Keanu, but had been on the streets for three. They sat in a Burger King on the outskirts of Tomball eating cold onion rings and talking. If the employees thought this unusual they didn’t say anything, and no cops had yet come to claim them. 

“Gonna be on my ass any minute,” Nick mumbled around an onion ring. He was staring at the table still, as he had been since they’d gotten there. Keanu pursed his lips.

“But you didn’t do anything.”  
  
“Sure.” 

“You said you didn’t,” he reminded the boy. Keanu ignored the unsettled feeling of his stomach and reached for his drink. “They were already... so there isn’t any evidence.”

“Y’think they need evidence? I’m a nutter.”

“No, you’re not.” 

Nick lifted his head and their eyes met. He leaned forward, and though his face was devoid of emotion, his voice shook as he asked “and if I said I still see her?”

“Beverly?”

The boy’s gaze shifted, ever so slightly, to Keanu’s left. The hair on the back of Keanu’s neck prickled as a breath teased his ear. Slowly, he turned to look at the empty air beside him. “You’re not crazy,” he murmured again and shifted further into the bench seat. He gulped. “Not crazy at all.”

They both jumped when his phone beeped. 

Keanu grabbed it, well aware of Nick watching his every move.  You have one new message from Aino.

He hesitated, then punched the ‘OK’ button.

Are you OK ? 

Keanu closed his eyes, breathing a sigh of relief over the stab of shame in his gut. He began to type in a message, then shook his head and phoned her instead. It rang only once.

“Keanu?” Aino asked. She never called him that.

“I’m fine,” he replied, “They called you?”  
  
“Your mother is terrified,” the woman accused and he imagined he could feel her glaring. He didn’t like that being directed at him.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think they’d involve you.”  
  
“Well I’m glad they did! I had no idea how hard you’ve been pushing yourself--what were you thinking doing this?”

“I was handling it,” he growled.

“I’m sure,” she spat back. He could hear a faint clacking noise behind her--her heels as she paced, no doubt. “Handling it like you do everything else, I expect. You’re not immortal, you know, or infallible.”  
  
“No more so than you are.”

“You need to go home, now. Or at least call! You can’t just go running off and scaring everyone like this.”

“Why not? People do it every day.” Keanu glowered at the table, well aware of Nick still sitting across from him. He looked up at the other boy, taking in the marks on Nick’s face, the line of his gaunt cheeks, his scraggly hair. “People slip through the cracks  every day . They get lost, confused, hurt--and all because no one gives a shit about them, no one takes a minute to just  listen  to them,  talk to them,  believe them. They get written off as ‘crazy’, as inconsequential. But y’know what--they’re not crazy. We’re not crazy. And we’re not inconsequential.”  
  
“I never--”

“You did! You always have. You sit up there on your high horse looking down on all of us little heathens scuttling about in the muck. If you think we never heard the things you said, you’re wrong. And I’m tired of being seen as less than. I’m tired of being the errand boy, waiting on your scrap of kindness. Fuck your princess and fuck you.”

Keanu hadn’t been aware that he was shouting until he closed his phone and turned it off for good measure. The employees and what few other patrons the restaurant had at midnight were all staring at them. Nicholas, however, seemed unmoved.

The other boy grabbed their tray and stood up. He dropped the trash into the garbage, and took the keys from the table. “Let me drive a bit, huh?”

Keanu nodded. They left before the manager could kick them out. A short stop at an ATM later, they didn’t look back.


	5. There for You

** ZOE **

July 2009. Tokyo, Japan.

Most people considered the methodical beeping of a heart monitor to be reassuring, Zoe thought; she found it a torment. It informed her that the boy she watched was alive, but he was not with her. He lay in the bed with his long blond eyelashes twitching in time with his dreams, with parasitic tubes thrust into his body, and there could be no denying that he was at least one world away in thought. Perhaps two.

The nurses said that these contraptions helped him to live while he slept. If sleeping were such a dangerous thing, she'd countered, why did they want her to do more of it?

No one had an answer for that.

Zoe rested her chin upon one folded arm. Her fingers played with the itchy hospital linens. You would have to be a coma to get any sleep in this place, she thought. Perhaps it was for the best, though. Maybe in these dreams his monster couldn’t get to him.    
  
She cast a wary glance behind her at the open door. The nurse at the station beyond it looked up, as if feeling Zoe's eyes upon her, and the glare that she offered was easily read: "Do not shut that door again, young lady."

The sixteen-year-old sighed and returned to staring at Jun. Her back itched as though the open door was staring at  her . She hated this about hospitals--there was little in the way of privacy, especially for children. The explanation--"it keeps bad things from happening"--once again fell flat. Observation had done nothing for Jun.

"Wake up," Zoe whispered in English. She would speak no Japanese here; the less people that could understand her, the better. Jun's eyelids twitched and the heart monitor beeped on exactly as before.

"You said that I abandoned you," Zoe continued on as her eyes blurred the image of his fingers and the line feeding into his hand, "Is this your way for getting back at me? Because I left before you got better? If you keep doing this, they're just gonna think you're more crazy. No matter what you do, no matter what you say, the more that you act out the 'crazier' you become. You know that. It doesn't matter if you have your reasons. They don't wanna hear them."

Heavy footsteps on the tile outside. As though a string inside of her--like a tube, the same as the ones feeding Jun--had been tugged, Zoe knew that this was a sound she should pay attention to. 

The steps drew closer to the steady beat of the heart monitor. Though the urge was strong, Zoe refused to turn around. When the footsteps stopped outside Jun’s door she realized that she didn’t need to.

“Go away,” Zoe ordered as her fingers clutched the bedsheets. There was a hesitation, tangible in the air itself, and then they drifted two paces into the room. 

“Stop!” Zoe squeezed her eyes shut. The footsteps stayed in their place. “He doesn’t need you. We don’t need you. We don’t want you, we don’t love you, and we don’t want anything to do with you. 

“Go. Away.”

If not for the incessant beeping of the monitor, Zoe thought that time might have stopped dead in that instant.

Then, a single step moved away. It paused again, seemingly uncertain of itself, and then another retreating step. One by one, the footsteps moved back down the hall until they were no more. Zoe sniffed loudly and opened her eyes to the restless face nestled in a bed of blond curls. Her hand inched across the bed linen until her fingers twined with his. 

The only light came from the trail of sizzling embers that spewed over the ground like a carpet of death. Pop, crackle, pop; they proclaimed their tentative hold on life to any left to hear it.

Throat clogged with smoke and the taste of bile, Zoe pushed herself to her knees and then to her feet. Her skin was scraped through her clothes and chain mail drug at her arms. She fought with it, clawing her way out of the warped tangle of armor until she could hold it before her. Gulping at the soot marks and the torn, blistering chinks, she dropped it into a sorry heap and stumbled away.

She picked her way, stumbling, through the blistering field. It was as though some giant god had swept its hand across the Beltane fires and sent them pouring over the hillside. In the red haze, lumps that looked suspiciously like bodies lay stuck in the piles of char and ash. Zoe turned her burning eyes away from them and watched where she put her feet, instead.

It felt like an eternity before the heat of the field was behind her, before the smoke drew its dagger-like fingers from her lungs and her eyes cleared of soot. Nothing could erase the stench of the dead, the tortured moans of the dying.

Anger and sickness swam conjoined in her stomach, threatening to toss whatever was there. She fought it as she marched on, trailing bits of armor behind her. A glove here, a belt there; her sword hit the ground with a dull thunk and she stopped to stare at it. After a moment, she knelt beside the blood-stained weapon and picked it up by the hilt. It looked heavy, but she did it with ease as unfamiliar muscles flexed in her arm. Her hand was wrong too, she realized with a frown; the nails were chipped, it was too angular, and the skin unmarred by the freckles that clouded her body.

A cry, some kind of bird she thought, jolted her from her musings and she dropped the sword again. Looking up through the forest of fire-scarred trees, Zoe found that she'd stumbled to the edge of a moonlit meadow. Here the foliage was unwasted, the water glistened in a babbling brook, and Jun sat among the ferns with a fawn in his lap. The clothes he was wearing were weird, like something one saw in a Robin Hood movie.

He jerked when she stood up, back straight and eyes turned to the dark side of the forest--away from her. The fawn, however, looked right at her. 

Zoe frowned at it; there was something weird about the fawn. For a moment her vision swam, an outline of something larger, and then the world snapped back into view. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, and then waded forth through the ferns to plop down at his side.

Jun still didn't look at her. Just about to punch his shoulder, he hissed a warning, and Zoe found her gaze being drawn to the black forest. "What--?"

He hissed again, and his hand grabbed hers. The fawn looked up too, ears erect as it watched the trees. Try as she might, Zoe couldn't see anything. It was an effort not to smile. She squeezed his hand and waited for him to realize there wasn't anything there.

Eventually he did. Jun’s shoulders relaxed, and he took his hand away, returning his attention to the fawn he'd been petting.

"Where are we?"

His curls obscured his eyes, as always, but Zoe thought she could feel him looking at her as his head turned, ever so slightly, in her direction. "I don't know."

"I don't know either," she looked at the fawn, who stared up at her. Zoe lifted a hand to pet it, hesitated, and then set her hand upon her knee instead. "There was burning."

Jun grunted in response, and his hands closed into a fist over the fawn's back. Her gut rolled, but Zoe leaned closer and put a hand to his shoulder. The boy turned his face further away and then two dark eyes filled her vision. The fawn hovered millimeters from her face, it’s dark eyes big as dinner plates, as it hissed: "We don't want you here."

"Zoe."

She blinked sleep weary eyes at the comatose boy before her. Her left hand was still twined with his, but the right moved to rub one eye. Fingers settled upon her shoulder and she jerked upright.

Dr. Mizuno flinched, and Zoe knew she wasn't supposed to have seen that. A thrill of glee that she'd caught the doctor by surprise overrode the guilt. Schooling her features to be sure that nothing but hostility showed, the blond scooted her chair away and finished rubbing the sleep-grit away. Mizuno looked down at her, silent, for a long moment before turning to look at Jun. "I had a feeling that you would be here. We had an appointment."

Zoe clasped Jun’s hand again, and she leaned forward against the edge mattress. Her back ached, but Mizuno didn't need to know that.

The doctor sighed. "I know you're upset about Jun. That's good--really good--but it can't come at detriment to yourself. You don't want Jun to wake up and find you've been neglecting your studies or treatment, do you?"

Zoe snorted and rolled her eyes. It was pointless to explain how much crap that was. She closed her eyes again. The hand returned to her shoulder and from the weight of it, Zoe peeked between her lashes to see Mizuno squatting next to her chair. This, she knew, was to put the doctor on "her level." They believed that it showed the patients that they were on Their Side. 

Bile crawled at her throat when she remembered how she'd used to believe it.

"Zoe. I realize that you and Jun were close. And I know that he's hurt right now, and how difficult that must be for you. We like the fact that you come to sit with him, but this is getting to be a little much. Just come down to the cafeteria and get something to eat with me, take a shower, and do a little school work. You can come back for evening visiting hours."

She cast a wary look at the Doctor. Mizuno seemed as though she meant it. Zoe frowned and glanced back up at the sleeping boy. Jun didn't say or do anything, just as he hadn't said or done anything for three weeks. She nodded, and released his hand. “Fine.” 

Mizuno rose with her and reached for her arm. Zoe pulled away, turned on her heel, and marched herself to the cafeteria.

Dinner went down by shovels, the better to get her away from Mizuno. To her credit, the doctor seemed to understand her distaste and didn’t try to talk. When she was done, Mizuno walked her to her room and left her be.

It was only the promise of returning to Jun that got Zoe to crack open her school books. “Pointless,” she muttered as she flipped through the history text. Settling on a chapter about the Meji rebellion, she settled against the wall to the back of her bed.

Slowly her gaze was pulled from the page, where the characters had long since disappeared and the pictures reduced to fuzzy splashes of colour, to the parking lot beyond her window. There, under the familiar tree, was the tiny blue bubble Mizuno called a car. Tears pricked Zoe’s eyes as she recalled a time she’d been so happy to see just that.

Squeezing them shut, she tossed her book aside and flopped face-forward into her pillow.

Her steps echoed along the empty corridor, fast and quick as the heart pounding against her ribs. There was no light but the glow of the moon through arched windows, interspersed along one side of the hall. 

Another set of steps rushed from an opening to her left. She passed and heard them fall into place behind her. “Is it true?” he hissed. 

“It is,” she replied--or she thought she did. There was something wrong with her voice, beyond the lump of restrained tears. 

They came upon a staircase that spiraled down into pitch darkness. Neither hesitated in running down it, skipping two of the steep, uneven steps at a time. Zoe’s mind screamed, convinced she would topple down them at any second, yet her feet seemed to know where it was they were going. 

Her hand, unfreckled and calloused, reached for the door at the bottom.

A car honked in the parking lot below. Zoe jerked, moaned, and slapped her hand to her face. She drug the heel of her palm against one eye and sat up. The room was exactly as she’d left it, save that her roommate had returned and now laid, sleeping, in the bed adjacent to her own. 

Turning to the window as the car honked again, Zoe blinked at the twilight beyond. When had it gotten so late?

Sitting in front of the main entrance to the hospital was a small white van marked with the hospital’s emblem that was blocking the main pass through. The car sitting behind it honked a third time, and then several figures rushed from the building. One of them was Mizuno, the other Bachiko.

A chill ran down Zoe’s spine as she saw them wheedling the red-headed girl to get into the van. Mizuno was making placating motions with her hands, as the two orderlies bulled the child until she was inside. In another moment they slammed the door. Mizuno stepped to the side, arms crossed about herself. Another of the doctors bowed to Mizuno, and then got in on the passenger side.

Launching herself from the bed, Zoe ran full stop toward the hospital entrance. Startled nurses and orderlies yelled in her wake. Mizuno was coming in the doors when she reached them, and Zoe skidded to a halt. “Where is she going?”

If Mizuno was surprised, she didn’t show it. She watched Zoe carefully a moment, then looked behind them and held a hand up to the orderlies that had followed after the girl. “It’s okay,” she told them, “There’s no problem here.”  
  
Though they grumbled, the orderlies returned to their duties with hardly a backward glance. Mizuno pursed her lips. “Did you want to see Jun?”

“I want to know what you’re doing with Bachiko.”

People were not staring in that pointed, Japanese way that Zoe had come to both love and loathe. Mizuno fidgeted in place, and Zoe crossed her arms over her chest. How many of them, she wondered, were marking her as a foreign delinquent? The back of her neck prickled, hairs raising on end, and she wanted nothing more than to press it to a wall. 

“Come with me, please,” Mizuno said, in English this time. She went for the elevator, and Zoe trailed behind.

The second floor held a sky walk into the “normal people” hospital. It was guarded by a double door and a nurse’s station, and no one moved to stop them when they went past. They were the only persons on there, as usual. 

“She is being transferred to another hospital. This facility was not appropriate for her.” Mizuno glanced at her. “You need not worry, she will not be back.”  
  
“What do you mean ‘it wasn’t appropriate’?” Zoe frowned.

Mizuno shook her head. “I cannot discuss another patient’s treatment with you, Zoe. Not in such detail.”  
  
“It’s because of us, isn’t it?” Zoe stopped in the middle of the sky walk. Mizuno turned back to look at her; she sighed and went to the window to look out at the darkening sky.

“No, Zoe,” Mizuno said after a moment, “It was because of her actions. This is primarily an open patient facility, as you are well aware. We found a more suitable situation for her.”

Drifting to the doctor’s side, Zoe gazed with her out the huge, floor-to-ceiling windows. “She’ll be okay, right?”

“Of course.” Mizuno’s reflection shifted to watch her. Zoe stared resolutely ahead. “You still care about her.”

“No! Yes.” Carding one hand through her hair, Zoe stomped her heel once. “No! No I don’t. Not now. She’s...” Faltering, Zoe wrapped her arms about herself and rubbed them.

“She was your friend?” Mizuno was still watching her, in that side-long Japanese fashion, and Zoe turned away. 

“She was Bachiko.” The girl shrugged and walked toward the end of the sky walk. Mizuno followed presently. At the hospital end, the doors only opened with a key-card; the other side had no guard of nurses or orderlies. There was a station a little further down the hall, however, in the children’s wing. 

Jun was laid in a room where the nurse on duty could monitor him. Unlike the other patients, he didn’t have family that checked on him or sat with him. Zoe went to her seat the moment they entered the room, and Mizuno didn’t try to stop her. 

After moving it to his beside, Zoe plopped down onto the hard seat and leaned her elbows onto the mattress. Mizuno remained by the door a moment longer; Zoe could feel the woman’s presence at her back. Finally she turned, and Zoe counted the footsteps drifting away.

“Dr. Mizuno.” They paused at the nurses’ station. The nurse continued, almost too softly for Zoe to hear, “Are you sure that this is okay?”

“A little longer,” Mizuno replied after a moment. “Give it a few more days.” The footsteps continued their journey, but Zoe was no longer counting. 

She raised her eyes to Jun’s still face, and reached for his hand. “Please. Wake up?” 

The morning dew chilled her naked feet, the grass sending up swarms of crickets and a crushed, rain-fresh smell that brought tears to her eyes. She scrubbed them away, and blinked until her vision cleared. All around her, the meadow was a brilliant carpet of emerald ferns, a rainbow of wild flowers, with golden sunlight pouring from the heavens. It was, in a word, impossible.

She knew that there was nothing like this on earth--except maybe in doctored nature magazines. In the distance a bird sang to itself. Nothing else moved; not a stir of wind or hum of cricket. Goosebumps raced up her arms as she took a cautious step into the meadow.

It was the same one she’d found Jun in before, though it was morning now, and the boy didn’t seem to be in sight. Neither was that fawn, and, for that, Zoe was grateful.

A sharp giggle came from beneath the trees. 

Zoe turned to face them, but there was nothing beneath the trunks but more ferns. “Hello?” she called, one hand moving to the sword at her hip.

Though mildly surprised at the weapon’s presence--as well as her response to it--Zoe was grateful for the solid hilt beneath her palm. Another giggle came, to her back now. She tipped her head in the right direction, but waited. 

A third, to her left. A fourth to her right.

“Stop toying with me! Who are you?”

The giggling stopped. Zoe waited, hardly daring to breath, but no more sounds came. A cricket dared to sing, followed timidly by his fellows. 

“Jun?” Zoe called, her voice quavering. 

“Excuse me,” said the night nurse as she shook Zoe’s shoulder. Zoe jumped back. Her seat fell over, spilling her to the tile.

“Oh!” the nurse gasped and moved to help her up. The girl struggled away and scrambled up on her own. 

“What?” She grabbed the chair up and righted it, glaring at the woman who’d woken her.    
  
For a moment the nurse merely stared at her. Then she gave Zoe one of those damned, false smiles and gestured to the door. “Visiting hours are over, miss. You need to return to the...other wing now.”

Zoe looked to Jun, still lying where he had been. “I’ll find you,” she muttered to him in English. Before the nurse could call the orderlies, she left and allowed the woman to trail her back over to the sky walk. The nurse let Zoe through, the card-reader beeping when she scanned it, and made sure the door closed behind her.

Stopping again in the middle of the walk, Zoe looked up at the sky. The moon was a pale crescent in its bed of stars. She shivered, and chaffed her palm against one arm. 

Shocks ran down her arms with each blow, but still she pressed on. Her opponent was in fine form that evening; he pressed her through the routines like a madman, never seeming to tire. It wasn’t his aggressiveness that bothered her, though, nor even the angry set to his lips. 

No, it was the silence which got to her. The impersonal feeling of the fight--as though they really were two enemies met upon the battlefield. 

In the end he tripped her, sending her sprawling across the straw covered floor of the salle. The tip of his sword hovered a millimeter from her throat, her own kicked to smack uselessly against the far wall. 

For a moment they stayed that way, sapphire eyes boring into her own. 

He sheathed his sword in an instant and strode from the practice room. She remained to stare at the rafters and wonder where the good days had gone.

Someone rapped at her door. Zoe didn’t move from the window; the blue bubble car was in its spot, begging to be stared at. She looked at the cityscape instead. Behind her, the door opened, shut, and her visitor stood before it, watching her. The clock on her bedside table ticked on in amiable ignorance of the human’s discomfort. After it had counted by a full two minutes, the visitor shuffled his feet.

“Zoe,” Cain rubbed the back of his neck with the hand that wasn’t clutching a familiar, bedraggled teddy bear. She could see him in the window, once she focused on the dim reflection, and something stirred at the sight of her beloved Mr. Ruffles. 

Zoe’s shoulders slumped, and she turned to face her brother, holding one hand out. Cain snorted, but handed the bear over so that she could squeeze it. “Brat,” he accused and settled on the end of the bed.

“Jealous.” The girl stuck her tongue out at him and kissed the stuffed bear’s head. Cain’s nose wrinkled a little, and he shook his head. “It’s just a stuffed toy, and I know where it’s been.” Nevertheless, a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth, and when he looked at her again, it was easier to ignore the lines etched prematurely at the corners of his eyes and between his brows. “So, I get no acknowledgement at all?”

Zoe glanced at the door to make certain that it was closed. She stood on her knees and waddled close enough that she might loop her arms around her brother’s shoulders. His arm wrapped about her middle, and he held her close for a long moment.

“So,” he said into her ear, “I heard you beat the hell out of some chick?”

“Ugh.” Zoe pulled away and settled back onto the bed with a sigh. “Mom sent you to lecture me, is that it?”

Cain turned a look upon her that made her fidget like a naughty toddler. “ Mom is in Aspen. She doesn’t know.”

“They went to Aspen?”

The boy--man, she reminded herself, he was in college now--ran one large hand into his thick, blond locks and stood up. “Dad’s been there on business, Zoe. They’ll still be there a couple more months. It took us weeks to convince her to go along with this, so don’t you dare--“

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she yelped and then jerked her eyes down to the bear she held. A knot in her gut belied her words and then Cain’s knee dropped onto the bed.

“Yeah, you did.” He crossed his arms and stood there until she looked up at him. The man sighed and flopped back down onto the end of the bed, which squeaked in mild protest. “Zoe. She’s…This has taken a lot out of her, okay?”

“I know.”

“Do you?” Cain lifted a brow, and Zoe’s lips tightened. Once again her eyes dropped, but two calloused fingers took her chin between them. “Look at me…I know this isn’t easy on you, but it isn’t easy on her either, okay? It isn’t easy or fun for any of us, and we…Zoe going around beating people senseless because you don’t like them…you can’t just--”

“It wasn’t like that.” Zoe pulled away and scooted back down the bed to her pillows. “Bachiko attacked me!”

“That isn’t what the doctor said.” Cain frowned.

“Yeah, well maybe the doctor doesn’t know everything.”

Cain stared at her for a long time, his face unreadable even to someone who had known him her whole life. Zoe refused to gulp or to spew the apologies that clogged her throat. He stood up. 

Halfway to the door, Cain turned and there was something in his eyes which hurt a lot more than anger. “You know we love you. We want you to get better. But sometimes I wonder how much you really care about the rest of us, because you sure don’t seem to think about how this affects anyone but you. I don’t know what it is that you’re so upset about, but if you’re not sharing everything with your doctor…”

The man shook his head. Though his mouth opened to add something, he closed it again without saying a word. In another moment she was alone again, but for a bear to remind her of what she’d once had.

It was still in her arms when she went to Mizuno’s office later that afternoon. If the woman thought anything of the decrepit toy, she said nothing and offered Zoe some tea. The girl took it, if only to be polite, and they sat in silence most of their hour.

“Zoe, about Jun--”   
  
“I don’t know what to do.” Zoe interrupted. Mizuno paused, tea midway to her lips, to watch Zoe. The girl shrugged. “Well, I don’t.”

“Do about...What don’t you know what to do about?” 

Squeezing Mr. Ruffles, Zoe put her nose to the bears head and watched his paws. “Everything,” she said eventually. “Anything. The whole world’s gone to hell, and I can’t fix it.”

Mizuno sipped her tea. “I’m glad that you’d want to ‘fix it’, Zoe, but is that really your responsibility?”  
  
“Whose would it be?” Zoe muttered. She shrugged and drew her feet up into the seat; Mizuno didn’t try to stop her, though she glanced at the feet on her furniture. “I couldn’t help him. Can’t help myself. Couldn’t help her. Everything I try to do fails. Sometimes I think I’m supposed to.”  
  
“Fail?”  
  
Zoe nodded. “I always lose, every time. No matter how hard I try, how much time or energy...we’re never going to win, are we? So what’s the point. He was right. It doesn’t matter.”

“Zoe,” Mizuno cooed, and frowned. “You do matter,  what  you do--”

“Gets people killed!” The girl snapped. “So what’s the difference? If someone’s blood has to be spilled, shouldn’t it be mine? It will be eventually, and we both know it.” 

Her pulse rang in her ears; her heart hammered against her chest. She got up, jerking away when Mizuno reached for her, and slammed the office door behind her. Breaking into a trot, bear dangling by its foot, Zoe got halfway down the hall before she heard Mizuno call her name. With a growl, she urged herself into a run. 

“Zoe!” Mizuno yelled again. Nurses were paying attention now. One of them grabbed a phone; she could hear the woman calling for ‘backup.’ How many times had she done this now? It felt like millions, yet she never managed to do what Jun had done--she never could escape.

An orderly appeared before her, gigantic in the doorway. She tried to change her course, but her slippers skidded on the tile. The man grabbed her and held on until Mizuno caught up. One look at the doctor and the energy seemed to drain from Zoe’s body. 

“Show her to her room, please,” Mizuno asked the orderly. He nodded and kept one hand to Zoe’s shoulder as she walked with him back to her prison. Her fingers loosened, and Mr. Ruffles fell, abandoned, to the floor.

The heat was suffocating. Running forward, Zoe choked on her own screams as fresh tunnels of fire rose to block her path. They pushed her forward, to the side, back--forcing her path like a dog with sheep. 

There were others, too, trapped within the blaze. They screamed along with her, but their forms were black and charred, wilting beneath the onslaught. She tripped over one as he collapsed, and went sprawling into ash and embers. Coughing, hacking, the girl scrambled to her feet and tried to rub the soot from her face. When her vision finally cleared, she opened her eyes and saw that the fires had died. 

She stood in the field of embers and stared up into the moon-less sky. 

“The strongest link,” he whispered beside her, “will come when we least expect it.”  
  
“A new moon?”

She looked in time to see him nod. The man beside her was hardly more than a shadow, slightly darker than the others around them. It was a trick, she thought, something that he was doing though she couldn’t imagine how. He was watching the moon, though, and she looked to it too. It was hardly more than a sliver in the sky.

“When it disappears,” he murmured. “That’s when.”  
  
“Are we sure we have to do this?” 

“Yes,” she thought he said, though it was so faint she couldn’t be sure. When next she dared to look he was gone. 

The door opened and an orderly waved his flashlight about. Zoe squeezed her eyes shut until he’d marked their presence off on his clipboard and shut the door again. Sitting up, Zoe sighed and looked about the room. Soft light streamed in from the parking lot, enough to see Mr. Ruffles sitting across the room on an extra chair in the corner. Someone must have brought him back to her.

Tears pricking her eyes, Zoe scrambled off the bed and across the floor. She hugged the bear to her chest, breathing in the familiar scent of it. In all actuality, it probably didn’t smell like anything at all--but Zoe imagined she could smell her mother’s perfume, or the suikazura in their backyard. 

Looking down at the chair Ruffles had been sitting on, Zoe also remembered a certain visitor who had sat there weeks before. She hadn’t seen that freakish green jacket in a long while now, and the thought of him made her sneer. As she returned to her bed, Zoe also caught sight of her guitar case in the corner. 

She hadn’t played since that day. That song.

That song.

The nurse looked up briefly from her paperwork when Zoe appeared, guitar case strapped to her back and Mr. Ruffles in her arms. It was tempting to try, again, to shut the door. Unwilling to argue about it, she unstrapped her guitar and set it down beside the boy’s bed. Mr. Ruffles was placed next to Jun’s hand.

Guitar strap over one shoulder, Zoe took her seat and held the instrument loosely in her hands. She’d tuned it before she’d come, so she wouldn’t have to struggle in front of everyone. That didn’t make her feel less a...target. 

Shaking her head, the girl set her fingers to the strings. Slowly at first, but with rising confidence, she strummed out the long familiar tune. 

She’d never been quite sure where it had come from. It wasn’t something she’d heard anywhere that she could pinpoint--not a commercial, nor a TV show, not anything on the radio. Neither was it a lullaby, though it was paced as one. 

A soft moan came from the bed. Zoe looked up, fingers stilling, but Jun had not moved. After a moment, she took up the song again. His eyelids twitched, just faintly. Her fingers continued to play on, loop after loop, as his head lulled, millimeter by millimeter, to face her. “Come on,” she whispered. 

Someone’s hand clamped down on the neck of her guitar, killing the music with an off-tune  thwang . 

Zoe looked up at the large, dark eyed man standing over her. “Who is this child?” he demanded of the nurse, who had come flustering out from behind her desk. Zoe scrambled out of her seat and yanked her guitar away. The man glowered at her. 

“Tanaka-san,” said the nurse, bowing at the door. “I apologize, we did not know that you were coming.”

The man looked at Jun, then back to Zoe. “You’re one of those well-wishers, are you? Volunteer kids?”  
  
“No. I’m crazy.”

That seemed to trip Tanaka up some. He stared at her a moment, and then it was as though the fire had been knocked out of him. “Are you, now.” One hand drifted to touch the bed his son laid upon, and he looked down again at the sleeping boy. “A friend, even so, I hope?”  
  
She nodded. 

Tanaka and Jun could not look any less alike, Zoe thought. The father was well past his prime, with a receding hairline and well-worn creases in his skin. What hair he did have seemed dyed, for she could just make out the barest silver touch at his roots. Where Jun was a tiny, slim boy-child, Tanaka was tall, broad shouldered, and barrel chested. She wondered what Jun’s mother must have looked like, to produce such a child. 

“It’s good to see that he has a friend.” 

He touched Mr. Ruffles, and she startled. “Is this yours?” She nodded, again, and he handed the bear to her. The man glanced at her guitar, then shook his head. “Nurse, where is his doctor?”  
  
“Which one, sir?” the woman asked, glancing at the charts in her arms.   
  
“Both of them.”  
  
“I’ll go find them.” The nurse ran off, presumably to do just that, and left the pair of them alone. They stood together for several minutes, each staring at the unmoving boy. Then, slowly, Tanaka turned and wandered back into the hall. He stayed there until the nurse returned to escort him away. 

Soon after, the nurses shooed her away so that they could work.

Sitting alone in the rec room, Zoe stared out the window and ran her thumb lightly over the scar on her left wrist. The feeling made goosebumps up her back, but still she continued. Humming to herself, she didn’t look up when a chair scooted out at the table beside her.

“Sullivan-san...”  
  
“What do you want?” Zoe closed her eyes and rested her forehead upon the glass. 

“I thought we might play a few rounds again.”  
  
“Why? You let me win.” 

“Did I...” From the sound of it he was already setting up the game. Zoe sneered at his impertinence, but she sat up and took a look at the chess board. Chiba was still wearing that godawful green jacket, she noted with disgust. “I promise I won’t this time, if that’s what you want.”  
  
“What I want,” she muttered. Reaching for a pawn, she moved it out onto the board. Chiba lifted a brow at her words, but he matched her move. The game was on. 

They said nothing through the games, and when he left he did so quietly. Of their four games, Zoe won none; she was fine with that. After clearing away the game, she returned to her room and tried to sleep.

The fields were honey and gold; standing so tall with wheat that the five of them could get lost for hours. In the distance were the sounds of the forge--the clinks and bangs and scrapes as scythes were sharpened, plows patched for the impending harvest. But that day was distant for now, an eternity to them whom could not yet imagine the end of summer.

There were no rules to their game, yet they played it: chasing through the wheat, catching sight of one another only in the flash of clothing or laughing voice. It was the prince who took the tumble first, when they came upon the end of the fields, rolling down the hill toward the river. The others followed suit until they laid a writhing pile of boys beneath the heavy limbs of the orchard trees.

“There’s an apple in my ass,” complained one, just to set the others laughing once again. They hit him and scrambled to their feet. 

Snagging fruit from the trees as they passed, they marched the rest of the way to the river. “I still can’t believe he let us go,” mused one, a golden-haired boy with a farmer’s tan. “Kalunite’s been on my ass about practice.”

“It isn’t his fault you dance about the salle like a maid with a broom,” another teased, the complainer from earlier. His long, dark locks were pulled back into a tail which he twirled around one finger whilst “impersonating” the blond. “I’d say you could use all the practice you can get.”

The blond got up to chase him, eventually catching him and punching at his arms while the rest looked on, cheering for both and neither. 

“Well why shouldn’t we have some time to ourselves?” The prince gestured with his apple. “We work hard as anyone, learning all that strategy nonsense and sword play.”  
  
“And court.” They all grimaced, the loud mouthed pair finally given up on beating one another to a pulp. 

“True,” said that strange voice from her dreams. “But it is weird.”  
  
A heavy shadow fell across the river bank and all five looked up. A silver streak flew across the sky like a chariot. Behind it, hung in the sky despite the daylight, hung the slim crescent of the moon. 

It was waning. Zoe rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she stared out her window at the moon. It was hard to see, now, it was so slender against the sky. The pit of her stomach lurched. “When it disappears,” she mumbled.

She sat up and stared at Mr. Ruffles. “When it disappears,” she said again, stronger this time. Slipping from the bed, she found her slippers and then padded to the door.

A quick check into the hall saw no one. Zoe slipped from her room and tiptoed down the corridor. There was a single light on at the nurse’s station where one of the orderlies was filing paperwork. She could hear the music blasting from his headphones even here. 

Waiting for a moment when his back was turned, she ran across the open space and hid, squatting, behind the counter. Praying fervently that no one would come along and see her, Zoe inched herself around the rounded counter, toward the hall on the other side. 

Peeking about the corner of the counter, she watched as the orderly finished with his filing, gathered up some other loose papers. He turned toward her. She ducked back behind the counter and plastered herself to it as he walked past, humming to his music.   
  
The orderly bee-bopped his way down the hall she needed, so she was left with little choice but to follow in his wake, ducking from one hiding spot to another. A trash can here, an alcove there, a roller-cart of cleaning supplies she was certain a janitor would find her molesting at any second.

At the elevator, the orderly got on, and the doors closed. Zoe breathed a sigh of relief.

From that point on her journey was swifter. Listening diligently for other midnight travelers, she made her way past quiet labs and therapy rooms, past more bedrooms both used and not, until she came to the station beside the sky walk. 

There wasn’t anyone there, and she grinned. Checking both ways down the adjoining hall, she darted across, opened the door, and stepped out into the dark corridor. Trotting down the hall, she didn’t stop until she reached the other door, grabbing at the handle and--it was locked.

Zoe stared at it for a long moment, before the blinking LED on the card-reader caught her attention. “Dammit!” She banged her fist against the wall, then sunk to press her back against it. Drawing her knees up to her chest, she wrapped her arms about her legs and thumped her forehead against her kneecaps. 

Looking up through the glass ceiling, she watched the moon as it spied upon her--laughing. 

“Is it true?”  
  
He raced after her down the flight of uneven stone steps. She reached for the door at the bottom and burst through the side entrance to the audience chamber. 

The king was upon his throne, his wizened head bowed in grief. The queen sat beside him, her hand in his. Zoe searched her the woman’s face for some sign of pleasure in this, some note of amusement--but there was none. Content with that small comfort, she jogged to her place before the throne where their two brothers-in-arms waited. 

She and the other--the blond one, though he was much older now--bent to one knee before their king. 

Silence. No one dared to move or breath.

Then, with all the grace and dignity of his station, the king rose to his feet and lifted his chin. Only those closest to him, his own generals and his son’s companions, knew what such an act cost him in energy and pain. The king was not young, nor whole, and she wondered if this might be the death of him after all. 

“As you are all surely aware by now, my--the prince has fled. He has turned traitor and put his lot in with our enemies. Let his name be blackened from our records and our hearts, his claim upon our throne rendered invalid, and life forfeit should he ever step foot upon these sacred grounds again.

“They rally their armies against us, now. We will do no less than the same. Send for the heralds and call my lords and their men.”

Those terrible, sapphire eyes, so like the prince’s, fell upon the four companions before him. “I trust you will fulfill your duty.”

“Yes, my Liege,” the largest of them said. The others followed suit, but there was no joy from any of them. He moved to reclaim his seat, and his wife held her hand out for his. As she took it, her dark eyes met Zoe’s.

There was shouting at the end of the hall. Zoe looked up to find herself still in the sky walk, the king and his wife long gone. She frowned. Rising to her feet, Zoe started back across to her proper side of the hospital. 

Mizuno was angry with her; Zoe wasn’t sure that she’d ever seen the woman truly angry before, and it left her with a queasy sort of feeling. 

“How can I let you go?” The doctor frowned down at her. “You’ve already been in there far more often than is allowed under regular policy, you aren’t even trying with your school work anymore, you’re storming out of therapy sessions, and now  this .

“All on top of that nastiness with Bachiko...” Mizuno took off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “No. I’m very sorry, but no. I cannot allow you to go over there any more. Not until something changes.”  
  
“His father didn’t seem to mind!” Zoe’s hands curled into fists at her side. Mizuno glanced at them, as though fearful of being hit, and then shook her head.

“What Tanaka-san minds or does not mind is not my concern, Zoe. You are. It is for your health alone that I am putting a stop to this. Please, take a look at your homework. Then we can talk.”

“But the new moon--”

Mizuno had been moving for the door, but she stopped at that. Zoe looked away again, even as she felt Mizuno’s eyes upon her. “The new moon? What about it?”  
  
“It’s tonight, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I think so.”

Zoe stared out her window. That atrocious blue car underneath it’s tree. How she wanted to destroy it. “Get out.”

The door shut behind the doctor, and Zoe strode over to the window. She paced in what limit space the room allowed--her roommate was gone to group therapy, so it didn’t matter. Tearing at her hair, she growled and muttered nonsense to herself. It did no good to curse people, but she did it anyway.

“It’s going to come, and if I can’t get to him, and then we can’t fulfill our promise and the king will die, and what am I going to do?”  
  
She spread her hands in avid gesture to the bear sitting upon her bed. “What do I do, Ruffles? I need a plan.”  
  
Her skin itched like a mad thing, the scars upon her wrists seemed to pulse. Zoe tore at them with her nails, trying to silence the urge. “It just...No one would believe me, you know? They never will, never would. How can I tell them? The moon...the moon is just like it...GAH.”  
  
Red dripped down her arms. Zoe stared at it, as it spilled from the scratches she’d made. Not as free flowing as a real cut would be, no, but it didn’t work this time. The itching didn’t stop. Shaking, she flopped onto her bed and grabbed her bear. She pulled it to her chest and hugged it tight as the tears came.

The entire world was ice, but that didn’t seem to bother her. Her breath frosted before her eyes, and yet...she felt nothing. Still marveling at this, it took Zoe a moment to notice the woman kneeling upon one knee before her. The woman reached a hand up to her.

She was made of ice, like everything else, but there was breath in her chest, and when Zoe took the offered hand, it was warm. The demon’s eyes rose to meet hers and it smiled. “Mistress.”

Sunset fire bathed the room when she woke. Despair still clawed at her throat. “What do I do?” she whispered to Mr. Ruffles.

“You do what you must,” said the bear. Nodding, Zoe got up from the bed. 

No one stopped her as she went down the hall to the hospital’s entrance, but several of the orderlies and nurses gave her the eye. They would care if she tried to run, she knew, and they would stop her if she went for the sky walk. There was only one other alternative.   
  
Zoe eyed the double doors at the main entrance to the hospital. She went past them, to the rec room. Turning her bear about, she kissed its forehead and then set it upon the chess table. Leaving it there, she headed back the way she’d come.

The screaming began as she reached the doors. In the confusion, she ran out them and toward the main branch of the hospital.

In the short time it took her to get there the demon had run through one of the walls in the psychiatric ward, sending more people out and getting the attention of the other ward’s occupants. Zoe pushed her way through the gathering crowd and into the building; no one tried to stop her.   
  
The nurses’ station adjacent to Jun’s room was empty. Zoe shut the room’s door and drew the blinds over the viewing windows. She shoved her chair under the doorknob, like she’d seen in movies, and then fell to her knees beside the bed. Grasping Jun’s hand between both of her Zoe pressed the boys fingers to her forehead. “Wake up. Wake up!”

A red haze bathed the meadow and its occupants. Jun was no where in sight, but the fawn stood in the middle of the field, staring her down. Zoe twisted the hilt in her hand, feeling the familiar weight of her sword. 

“We don’t want you here,” the fawn hissed between pointed canines.

“One last chance, demon.” Zoe held her sword up, pointed at the creature. “Let go of him.”

The fawn’s head lowered, its hoof pawing the loam. It charged as two points on its skull erupted into wicked, six-pronged antlers. Zoe parried, like she might’ve a swordsman, but the fawn sent her skidding back on her heels, the dirt and grass tossed up behind them. 

It tried to toss her aside, but she rolled with it, coming back up to ward off another attack. They danced around the field as though it were one of her practices with Endymion. Try as she might, she could not get an attack in--she was left to defend herself as the demon went wild.

“Weakling!” It laughed as it tossed her aside again, and stood to watch her struggle to her feet. She thought there might be more, but it pawed the ground in ready for another charge. This time, she rolled away from it.

Coming up from the roll, she brought her sword up and caught the demon’s flank. It crumpled onto three legs with a howl. 

Zoe smirked, getting to her feet as it struggled onto its own. “You,” it hissed, its bulbous eyes flashing red. It tossed its antlers, but its charge was slower this time. She dodged again, this time merely jumping to the side. Her blade caught along it’s side, running from neck to flank. 

The demon toppled and once again tried to stand. 

Zoe stood above it, staring down at the creature that had held her friend in thrall. “Please,” it begged. “I’ll obey. Master, I’ll obey!”

Her sword cut cleanly into it’s heart. She held it there until the body stopped twitching, until it blackened and disintegrated.

Sagging to her knees, Zoe stood there with her hands on the sword hilt. She closed her eyes, weeping softly, until there was a rustle in the ferns nearby. Jun fell to his knees in front of her and they stared at one another a long moment. 

“There’s a monster on the moon,” he said.

“I know,” she whispered. “Jun, I’m so sorry. I didn’t--”

He lurched forward, knocking her sword aside, to wrap his arms around her. She hugged him in return, face buried in his ash-covered curls. “They’re coming, Zoe. We have to be go to them.”  
  
“Who’s coming?”

“The others.”

Zoe pulled back to look at him. He seemed clearer now, somehow, not so muddled. Tears pricking her eyes, she nodded and held a hand up for him. He clasped it in kind, and they knew that their bond was settled. 

The hospital door burst inward, knocking the chair back into the equipment beyond. Zoe shrieked and scrambled backward, away from the broken door.

Two orderlies spilled into the room, moving to grab her and haul her to her feet. “Zoe!” Mizuno gasped, coming in the door after her. “What on earth are you doing?”  
  
“I told you, I had to get here before the new moon.”

“You see?” A man entered the room behind her, silver haired and cross. “Mizuno-san, I cannot believe you let this to go on for so long. To allow this child--”   
  
It was a nurse in the doorway who noticed first. Her startled gasp broke through the argument as she dashed to Jun’s side. He moaned softly, one weak hand trying to lift off the bed. The nurse shushed him as others went to get readings off the monitors attached to him. 

“I told you,” Zoe stated to the doctors. The silver-haired doctor just gaped, but Mizuno’s expression was unreadable. She met Zoe’s eyes and held them. 


	6. Set Fire to the Rain

**JUN**   
_July 2009. Tokyo, Japan_

  
They must have been screaming--the fire surely was roaring--yet the world was muted as he watched the dark figures be consumed by the blaze. They danced in pain until, finally, they fell dead into the ash. Somehow, through the billowing smoke and flashing light, he could see her on the hill above them, surveying the carnage; waiting to slaughter anyone who lived. Above her those damned birds circled, their figures obfuscating the stars and breaking her silhouette. He picked a bow and a pair of arrows from one of the silver-tabarded soldiers littering the ground beneath his feet.

She screamed as they fell.

He charged across the embers, to where she still crouched over their bodies, tears streaked down her soot-smeared face. Somehow she’d gotten a sword, and she met his attack with the flat of it.

Strike after strike rang through the air, clear as a bell. The only other sounds that registered to him were the panting of their breaths and the crunch of ash and bone beneath their feet. Fire raged in his veins. She could have killed him at any second, and they both knew it. She could have, should have, killed him with the others below.

That she wanted to--she wished she had--blazed in her eyes, and radiated from her skin. Her lips moved, a whisper lost beneath the clang of steel upon steel.

Ducking the next strike, he whirled and slashed her thigh. He stood over her and allowed her to push herself up. The wound on her thigh was bleeding freely--it’d cut deep; deep enough to cripple her, probably. All around her, her aura seethed red. He lifted his sword as she lifted her hand. A spark of fire ignited her palm.

The loam beneath him smelt heavy of earth and rain. He breathed in the deep scent of it and then lifted himself from the bed of ferns. Spring was in full bloom throughout the meadow; flowers opened, and bees buzzed, and a nest of song birds warbled out a simple song. Jun sat in the middle, upon ash-stained knees, and admired nature’s beauty with a sense of awe. He had never seen anything so picturesque outside of a painting.

A fawn ventured from the woods, its ears twitching for sounds of danger. As he watched, it lowered its head to nibble at the flora.

Lightning cracked above. When he looked up he saw a rolling mass of clouds obliterating the sky. Jun backed away into the woods, turned, and began to run as the wind picked through the canopy above. The fawn stayed as it was, guarding the meadow.

Rain soon began to fall, though it was light beneath the cover of the trees. He could hear the wind howling without, and the further he went into the forest the darker that everything became. Cold, tired, and dirty, he stumbled over a log and fell to his knees in the mud of a creek bed. It was slowly flooding, and something told him that he didn’t want to stay long in the ravine. Jun caught the roots of a tree and pulled himself up the other side just before a rush of water came roaring through the stream.

Panting, he climbed up onto wobbly legs and stumbled away. Willing himself to run once more, his heart trembled at the clap of thunder from above, and water lashed into his face. It should have been welcome after the fire, but it wasn’t. These elements would just as soon kill him.

He didn’t notice that he’d reached the treeline until he found himself skidding to a halt at the edge of a cliff. Waves crashed against the rocks below, and his arms windmilled like a cartoon character’s--suddenly those didn’t seem so funny anymore.

The earth gave way under his foot and he fell. Any scream that may have come was torn away by the wind, but then a hand caught his.

“Climb!” Jun looked up to see a dark headed boy above him, laying against the ground and trying to pull him up by shirt and wrist. He kicked at the cliff’s edge, scrambling for purchase, and finally reached up high enough with his other hand to catch at his saviour. With a grunt, the older boy hauled Jun back up the cliff until they collapsed together.

The boy’s eyes were green, like the very grass they laid upon, and he watched Jun with surprise. Yes, that was definitely what it was--surprise...and recognition.

They often shared these moments, but never before about the prince. Jun tore his eyes from his brother’s, though he hardly dare look back to the dais above them. His royal highness was in a foul temper, as he often was these days. It hurt too much to look at the inky blackness surrounding the one that they had once called “brother;” hurt more than even the sneers with which he now regarded them all.

“He hates us,” he whispered, and hoped that the prince had not heard him.

“Obviously, I have spoiled you with informality,” said the prince, “From this moment on you will respect your station and mine. We are not equals, nor have we ever have been.”

Thunder boomed overhead, jolting them each from their reverie. They scrambled to their feet, and the green-eyed boy went running back for the forest. “Hey!” Jun’s cry was in vain--the boy just kept running and didn’t look back. The sky still grumbling above, Jun took off after him but it was no use. In a matter of moments the boy was gone, as though he’d never existed.

Jun no longer felt whatever it was that had urged him to run. Eventually, he found his way back to the meadow. The fawn raised its head as he returned, seemingly undisturbed by anything that had happened. Falling down into the ferns, Jun soon allowed sleep to claim him.

Being shaken from his bed before the sun rose was something he’d never liked and had tried not to encouraged among his friends, though they’d done it many times in pursuit of midnight shenanigans. This time it was his cousin who stood over him, his fair curls fanned out about him like a wild thing and his formal attire thrown onto his person with obvious haste. A rainbow of emotion swirled about him, thick enough in some places that it blotted out his form entirely.

“What’s happened?” Jun tumbled from the bed and found his pants.

“Exactly what we thought would happen,” said his cousin, pursing his thin lips. He moved to the window and pushed aside the curtain to reveal the thin crescent moon above. Jun spat a curse, and pulled his shirt over his head. In a matter of moments he had found his belt and scabbard, tugged on his boots, and together they snuck out the corridor to the back servant’s stair.

Thin branches pulled at his clothes and hair, and he could feel spiders crawling over his body. There must be snakes in this forest, and wolves, and demons. It was not a place for anyone, much less princes of the blood, to be bandying about in the middle of the night. Certainly not with that thing.

He could feel his cousin nearby; hear him curse softly at the traces of the prince’s power felt lingering all around them. The very forest moved to cover the familiar path they tread, and it was only by the grace of their blood the flora did not go so far as to hurt them.

Even so, the further that they struggled the more active the plant life became. A thorny vine wrapped itself about his ankle--roses, he thought as he hacked it away. Had it not been for his leather boots, the thorns may have pierced his skin. Jun blanched to think of what might happen to anyone else that dared try this path.

Another caught his arm. He hissed and cut it away, but another got his leg. Then another, then another. Heart racing, he struggled to knock them aside, but still they came. Pulling his legs from the trap, Jun tried in vain to run. Another tug at his ankle, and he fell, screaming as he tumbled down the hillside.

Coughing, hacking, Jun wiped the soot from his eyes with a dirty sleeve, then looked up to find himself laying beneath an orchard of blackened apple trees. The fruits sprawled beneath the grizzled trunks, mostly charred, some squashed, and all rotted. He brushed bits of mud and mashed apple off onto his pants as he stood up.

“Cuz?” There was no sign of the other boy, and when Jun turned to look at the cliff behind him he found only a hillside. He hesitated but a moment before climbing to the top of it.

The field was a wasteland of embers, as though some great god had cut a path through the earth. Some fires still roared, fueled by piles of soldiers and animals. Jun pressed a hand to his mouth and half ran, half stumbled back down the hill. There was a river just beyond the orchard, and though it was swollen and rapid with rains, he fell to his knees beside it to puke.

When he was done, he washed his face and cleansed his mouth, though the water tasted more like mud. There was a rustle behind him--fabric.

Every muscle in his body tensed as the heat was sucked from the air. He trembled as he rose to his feet, one hand inching toward his scabbard.

Jun whirled and met her frosted eyes. She laid on the ground, spilled where she’d fallen like a broken doll, though her arms reached forward as if to grasp him still. He walked forward and pulled his sword from her stomach. His hands hurt, and he was surprised to find them covered in a thin layer of ice.

The river rose up and slapped him. He tumbled backward into the dark waters as the breath was wrenched from his body, suffocating and toxic. There were hands wrapped about his throat, slender and hard. He kicked and kicked to no avail. The world grew dark.

With a gasp he wrenched himself up out of the ferns, clawing at his neck.

Something nuzzled his ear, and Jun scrambled backward from it until his mind registered that it was only the fawn. He was back in the meadow, he realized, and wondered if he’d ever really left. “Just a dream.” But was it?

Looking up at the sky above, it was still covered in thick thunderheads, broken only by patches of crimson and orange. Thunderheads, he thought, or smoke?

Before he could get up, the fawn laid its head in his lap. Jun petted its head and squeezed his eyes shut. There was a whispering without, from the forest. Turning his head to the side, he could just make out the form of a person--a woman?--walking within the trees. “Hello?”

No one answered. The hairs stood on the back of his neck and he gripped the fawn close.

Something moved behind him, but did not bring the same presence of warning with it. Footsteps and the whisper of cloth through the ferns, and then someone sat beside him.

The silhouette turned toward them and he hissed a warning. It watched them for a long moment, staring from the darkness; he scarcely dared to breath. “What--” Jun reached back and grabbed the person’s hand, hissing another warning. The fawn, too, looked up now. Together they watched as the blackness stared at them.

Finally it turned away, and melted back into the void. Jun let out a shaky breath. Freeing his hand from the other boy’s, he reached forward to scratch behind the fawn’s ears.

“Where are we?”

“I don’t know,” said Jun, after turning just enough to be certain that it was his cousin beside him. Those familiar green eyes said it all, and with that assured Jun looked down at his fawn.

“I don’t know either.” The boy shifted. “There was burning.”

His fist closed tight as his stomach clenched. With a grunt, Jun doubled in on himself. For a moment the world was naught but pain, and he cried out. When his vision cleared, his cousin and the fawn had gone, as had the meadow. He laid upon the cold, hard ground and stared up at the clear stars above.

Pulling himself up into a sitting position, Jun found that he was sitting on a parapet that overlooked the ruined land below. The fires had gone cold, but the scar of ash still laid across the fields. Further south, the river had spilled from its confines and run through the town; bits of houses still bobbed in the water. For all this destruction, the world was strangely quiet.

“Why did they do this?”

Jun looked beside him to find the green-eyed boy from earlier. His hair was riddled with leaves and limbs, and his clothes torn and stained with everything from ash to mud. Though he knew that he must not look much better, but it was still a strange sight to see.

Turning back to the massacre below, Jun shook his head. “I don’t know.”

They stood there together for a long while, until Jun began to wonder why the sun had yet to dawn. Then the boy grabbed his shoulder. “What do you think that is?”

The boy pointed out to the hillside where a light had been lit. It was just a sparkling dot in the distance, and for all that Jun knew it could be that witch again. Something in this felt different, though, and he frowned. “I think it’s important,” he said after a moment.

“Yeah, me too.”

They turned as one for the stair, somehow knowing where it was. The corkscrew staircase was pitch black beneath their feet, and the steps uneven and steep, yet they found their way as though they were born to it. With one hand against the wall to steady himself, Jun raced down behind the other boy as his heart began to beat a tantrum in his throat.

His cousin burst from the stairwell before him, and he followed the boy--a man, now--out into the audience chamber. The king was upon his throne, blue and darkness swirling about his bowed head. The queen sat beside him, her aura mingling with his own. For this Jun was shocked, though he dared not let that be seen.

Kneeling in his place beside his brothers, he managed to briefly catch one of the other’s eyes, a green-eyed man with dark hair and a serious face. They shared something, then, an understanding that passed through Jun’s body like a bolt of lightning. The queen should have been celebrating this victory--shouldn’t she?

The king rose to his feet and lifted his chin. A single flash of red swirled about him, but it faded as soon as it had been. “As you are all surely aware by now, my--the prince has fled. He has turned traitor and put his lot in with our enemies. Let his name be blackened from our records and our hearts, his claim upon our throne rendered invalid, and life forfeit should he ever step foot upon these sacred grounds again.

“They rally their armies against us, now. We will do no less than the same. Send for the heralds and call my lords and their men.”

The king’s eyes lowered as deep sapphire blue all but blotted out his physical form. “I trust you will fulfill your duty.”

“Yes, my Liege,” the eldest of them said. The others followed suit, Jun in kind, but there was no joy from any of them. The king reclaimed his seat as his wife took his arm to ease him into it. She looked up, then, her purple eyes roaming over the gathered generals. Jun watched the blues and reds that danced about her figure, and wondered how he had ever misread her.

“She’s a menace,” said a voice behind him. He turned and found the elder of their lot pacing in front of his sitting room fireplace. The man was impressive, Jun had to admit: tall, broad shouldered and cut, with a shock of white hair and cold grey eyes. He had his arms crossed behind his back and he scowled at the carpet as he paced, as though it owed him an answer.

Jun’s cousin sat on a nearby couch, arms splayed over the back of it and head lolled backward. He may have been asleep but for the alert swirls of pink and maroon flickering about his person. A tapping noise got Jun’s attention and he turned to see the brunet sitting backward at the desk chair, fingers drumming along the wood of it. The man’s grass-green eyes rose to his and they shared a thought: their leader’s agitation was well deserved.

“Maybe,” his cousin said and sighed. Before he could be rounded on, he held up a staying hand. “Hear me out. I won’t deny that her presence...confuses matters. It does in spades and it’ll send us all into early deaths, I’m sure of it. But is there any real harm in letting them have their fun? The more that we push against it, the worse he’s going to get. You know how he is.”

“Zoi’s right.” Jun paused, startled at the name but sure that it was--partially--right. He hastened on before the monster rounded upon him instead, “He won’t listen to any of us if we present ourselves as enemies. We’ll win more flies with honey.”

The white haired man frowned at the pair of them, then his eyes fell on their silent brother.

“They’re right,” he said and shrugged. “I like it no more than you do, but unless we play along...”

Sinking into a nearby seat, the man put his face into his hands and took a deep breath. Blue tendrils laced about him, weaving through his hair and around his eyes. Eventually he nodded, and they rose to leave him, assured now of their course.

“I don’t like this.”

They crouched behind the rose bushes as they spied upon the lovers, each feeling as much shame as the other and acutely aware that fact; it didn’t make either feel any better. Jun rubbed his hands together and breathed fog upon them.

Across the meadow was a derelict pavilion, by the lake shore, which had been used by barbarians of old to worship their moon gods. He supposed that was exactly what was going on now, save that the girl was not a goddess and their prince was not a barbarian. Yet, anyway. Jun rubbed his nose and shivered. “When did it get to be so blasted cold out here?”

Freezing steel was pressed to the back of his neck. It didn’t cut, but it could have, and he froze. His companion turned, one hand reaching for his scabbard. An arrow buried itself in the ground beside his hand.

“Turn,” said the person behind him--a woman. Jun did, slowly, until he could see them.

Above him stood a girl in blue; her uniform was trimmed in blue, her hair was the colour of frost, and her eyes as cold as the Arctic ice. He had known them last frozen in death, but she was very much alive here. Behind her, just barely visible in a tree, was the fire witch. Such short skirts and bows would have been laughable on any other warriors, yet these two sent chills of terror down his spine.

They exchanged a few words in a foreign tongue, then the arrow wielder spoke: “name yourselves.”

The world went blank for a long, black moment. As though to await his answer, the girls froze--they did not breathe, nor fidget, and even their hair stopped upon the wind. Jun slowly looked to his companion as his mind reeled, but the other boy’s eyes were wide. Scared, even.

“J--” he began, but the nearby fire crackled and distracted them. They sat before the blazing bonfire, a wonderful treat on a cold night, while around them their companions chatted and danced. Looking about, Jun could spot the old pavilion not too far away, just a bit further up the shore. No one would find them here, he realized, unless they let the fire get too high.

Zoi was strumming his guitar not too far away, singing a soft tune as the ice witch watched. She didn’t seem so cold with an aura of light about her, softly swayed by the music his cousin played. They had eyes only for one another, Jun noted with some discomfort.

From look on their leader’s face, it was obvious that he did not approve. Neither did the blond woman beside him, who hid her frown with another sip of wine. Nothing could disguise the angry orange arches pulsating about her, though--not from Jun, at least.

The real show was to be had with the prince and his “goddess.” Her silver hair was cast orange and russet in the bonfire’s light, but nothing could disguise the blush upon her cheeks or her wine-warmed giggling. Beside her, their prince had imbibed more than his share as well, and he made quite a show of whispering things into the princess’ ear.

“Disgusting, is it not?”

Jun turned and found the fire witch sitting next to him. Flashes of red mixed within her aura that night, but they were mellowed by a darker swirl, gradually turning everything as violet as her eyes. She sipped her wine judiciously, watching him from the corner of her eyes. He nodded.

“I’m not sure how long we can keep this up,” he said after a moment and pursed his lips.

“One hopes they’ll come to their senses soon.” The woman looked up, to the star-sprinkled sky above. “I don’t blame them, you know. They’re only human.”

“Are they?” Playing with his wine glass, Jun cast a baleful glance at his companion. She offered him the slightest of smiles.

“Contrary to popular opinion.”

“It means they can be killed,” said the queen. She sat on the dais above them, long streaks of ash trailed down her cheeks from where she’d been crying. Jun looked up at her, trying to read her but her emotions were far too muddled and messy to give any specific name to them. That was never a good sign in anyone, and certainly not in a leader.

This woman had never been loved by their lot, he realized with a start as he felt his own distaste of her begin to creep up on him. Try as he might, Jun wasn’t sure what it was that he hated about her--if anything, he felt sorry for her now. She sat upon the throne a broken woman, her late husband’s crown upon her lap and her womb empty of apparent heir. Without the prince there would be chaos, unless the Lords united under a single banner, and none of them could bring Endy back without a public outcry. If he would even agree to come back, which Jun doubted.

No one in the room was without their losses, however. Jun felt, acutely, the empty place where once his cousin had stood. All around the throne room there were empty spaces where nobles and knights had once kept place. Kalunite and Hamatite stood behind the queen, each glossed in aquamarine and sparks of orange. Hiddenite lay with their king.

The queen stood, lifting the crown with her. She met each of their eyes and Jun gulped as he realized what she would do. More than that, he knew that she needed their backing. It took little more than a glance at the other two to know that they were unified in their response.

“Our kingdom stands on the precipice of disaster,” said the queen, and she lifted her voice so that it run easily through the audience chamber, “With enemies at our gate, and snakes found hidden within our midst, we must stay united or else fall. It is under these circumstances only, and with a heavy heart, that I, Queen Consort Beryl, take the throne in the wake of my Lord.”

From the back, one lord rose and made his way toward the front. “Should not Lord Kunzite take the title? It is his birthright, with the fall of Endy--er...” Despite his slight slip, there were mutterings in the court behind them which backed his opinion.

Beryl glowered at the man, though Jun saw that her anger came only at the near mention of the traitor prince. The eldest of their lot--Kunzite, the name clicked now!--stood and turned to face the lord. “I bow here in deference to our queen and you ask that I be lofted higher?” he asked with a nonchalance that defied the angry fireworks popping off in Jun’s vision.

“With all due respect, Lord Kunzite, the queen--”

“Is perfectly capable of acting as regent until our kingdom is settled. We will discuss matters further once this war is off our doorstep.” Kunzite turned to face the queen, who bowed her head in acknowledgement. She placed the crown upon her husband’s throne, where it would remain until a true king--or queen--was in place.

Behind the throne, the two old guards regarded Kunzite with cold eyes. The blues that had encased them were now searing orange.

“Why,” began their dark-haired companion as they exited down an empty corridor. Kunzite cut him off with a hand gesture, until they reached his quarters further into the castle interior.

“I am now lord general, as you both should be aware. It does our people no good if another king dies upon the battlefield, but a queen can stay here and mend matters while we take the fight to them.”

“To Silver Millennium?” Nephrite frowned.

A dull horror spread through Jun’s boots as he considered that. Through the naked window he could see the moon as it peaked above the dawn horizon.

Kunzite favoured them both with a long look. Though he was young yet, the man suddenly seemed centuries older. War had left a scar across his cheek and bags under his eyes, and there were troubling lines wrinkling the corners of his mouth. “I’ve had about enough of our people murdered in their own land. Haven’t you?”

Jun looked down at his hand, a pink and wrinkled mass of scar tissue--it was totally unfit for use, now, at least with a sword. An acrid burning smell filled his nose and his eyes began to water. Everything was hot, so very hot. He screamed as he burst into flame.

The ferns were wet with morning dew. Jun laid among them, shivering and choking down sobs as he realized the pain was gone. Then he sat up and pulled his shirt off, patting his body frantically for scar tissue. There was none, and after a moment he collapsed back down onto his knees.

As his sobs slowly subsided he became aware of the sound of swords clashing nearby. Though no part of him wanted to see this, his body pulled itself up as though a puppeteer had taken control of it. He lurched past the fawn, still busy munching upon the ferns.

Just a short distance into the forest he came upon the river. Across it, he could see the apple orchard, full and ripe under a happy summer day. Underneath it, Zoi clashed in battle with the ice witch.

They were furious, of that Jun was certain. Each swipe held a fury behind it that shot fireworks into the air and bled upon the ground. Pressed backward, his cousin tripped over a root and fell to the ground. The ice witch stood over him. “How could you?” The ice witch’s aura flared red, violet, and blue.

“Ask your princess,” Zoi hissed. With a strangled cry, the woman lofted her sword.

“Zoicite!” Jun tripped forward and onto his knees, but his shouting was enough to startle the witch. She paused and cried out as Zoicite’s sword pierced through her stomach. His face was a mask of horror beneath his sweaty curls.

The witch dropped her weapon and stumbled backward before she fell. Such a wound was disastrous, but not immediately fatal and they all knew it. She’d lay there for hours before...Jun swallowed thickly as Zoi scrambled to the woman’s side.

He touched her face, cupping her cheek, and even from this distance Jun could see his tears. With a whispered apology, Zoi took her head in both hands. The crack could be heard across the river as easily as Zoi’s choked sob.

Rising to his feet, Zoicite pulled his sword up and wiped it off against his leg. He sheathed it and then ran back through the orchard, over the hill to the field behind. “Stop!” But it was too late. His cousin had gone.

Jun struggled back to his feet and stared at the river. It was still swollen and raging, far too fast for anyone to cross. Remembering his experience from earlier, he backed away from it. Across the water, the frosted eyes of the ice witch stared at him. Her mouth moved...Jun gave a strangled cry, turned, and ran.

Night fell as he forced his way through the woods, though the plant life wanted again to hold him at bay. “Stay,” whispered the trees and the birds and the bushes. “Stay with us. You’re wanted here.”

“No.” Tears streaked down his face, tears or rain he wasn’t sure. Nothing was right here, though he couldn’t be sure as to why. Nothing was right anywhere and it was all that witch’s fault.

Someone smacked into his side, and Jun found himself staring up again at the green-eyed boy. They laid on the ground a moment, one on top of the other, as they regained their breaths. All around him, the world seemed to pause and the whispering subsided.

“You’re real, aren’t you?” The boy glared down at him, only pushing himself up on his hands so that he could see Jun’s face entirely. Frantically, those green eyes searched Jun’s blue. “You’re real!”

“Of course I’m real.” Jun pushed the boy off of him and sat up. “What else would I be?”

A terrible, ragged breathing came from the woods. They turned as one to see the old woman crouched beneath a nearby tree, staring at them. She wore a torn floral print dress over her sinew and skin corpse, hunched over in a squat like a primate. Her teeth were what stood out the most, though--literally. Jun gulped as he took in the mouthful of bristling, three-inch razor sharp teeth which spilled from between her lips like the hooks of a venus fly trap. The demon stared at them a moment, then crawled forward upon its hands and knees.

Both he and the other boy scrambled backward for every step it took. “Masters,” it rasped around its horrendous teeth, “Why run? Stay with us here, where you belong.”

“Go away.” Though he was unsure if the creature was actually trying to hurt them, or if it merely delighted in tearing apart whatever was in it’s path, Jun scrambled frantically away from it. Behind them, trees and bush were ripped apart as the monster cackled with glee. Together, the two boys fled the scene, and this time the forest parted for them.

If someone had told him that one day he’d see a tree get up and walk, Jun would have sworn that they were crazier than he. Now he watched that very thing happen and was grateful for the trees that pulled themselves into their wake, creating a barrier against the thing which followed them.

The pair burst onto an open hillside, and lurched to a halt at the crest of it. “Where are we going?” Jun doubled over, hands on his knees, as the other boy turned in circles.

“There.” Following the boy’s pointed finger, Jun looked out across the wooded hills stretched before them. There was the flickering light again, just as they’d seen from the castle. It was closer now, and he could make out the outline of a building around it. “We have to make it there.”

A scream echoed from the woods behind them. They ran; ran until his lungs begged for air and every step sent a dagger coursing up his legs. From the woods they could no longer see the light they were trying to get to, but like a tug in his gut Jun knew that they were going the right direction.

Leaping over gullies, scrambling over fallen logs, the two boys kept in sight of one another but fled none the less. There was a great roar behind them, and Jun did not dare glance back to see what was going on. He could feel the beast’s breath upon the back of his neck and a hiss against his ear.

A hand caught his ankle and he went down, fingers scratching into the forest loam. “Help!”

“Jade!” The other boy turned back and caught one of Jun’s hands in both of his own. Jun twisted enough to look behind him at the chilling grin the woman gave him. Her teeth gnashed together and she tried to climb, hand over hand, up one of his legs. He kicked at her with his other, punctuating each delivery with a word: “Leave. Me. Alone!”

A sickening squelch came at the last as his heel sunk into the woman’s eye socket. She shrieked and let go of him. On his feet again, they ran before she could recover.

“What is that thing?” He gasped as soon as he was sure they’d left the demon behind.

“Dunno,” his companion lied.

“Ne--”

They stopped together as they entered a sudden clearing. In front of them was a shrine of white marble, with columns that reached into the sky. It was a simple circle design, roofless, and in the middle stood a simple pedestal. The pair exchanged a glance, and then walked together toward it.

When Jun dared to glance back he found that the forest was miles behind them, barely a spec on the horizon.

Gulping softly, he mounted the three steps up to the shrine and crossed silently to the pedestal. Five rocks stood upon it, four each to the cardinal point and the fifth in the center. Jun frowned and glanced at the other boy, who was staring at him.

“Kunzite,” said the boy and touched a pink gem to the south. Jun nodded in kind, glancing over the gems. His eyes fell upon a yellow-green stone to the north.

“Zoisite.” Then he looked to the west. Frowning, he looked at his companion. “Nephrite.”

“Jadeite,” said the boy, with a nod.

Both their eyes fell, then, upon the golden crystal to the center. It darkened and cracked before their eyes, and they each stepped away from the pedestal. Step after step the moved backward as the pedestal collapsed. The marble began to crack beneath their feet. Jun looked up for one moment and realized that he was being moved further and further away from Nephrite.

He called out, and the shrine gave way beneath their feet. Darkness engulfed him, and somewhere in the void was a rasping laugh.

Jun cried out as he landed on his back in the ferns. The stars spun above and he squeezed his eyes shut, praying it would stop. Slowly, achingly, he pulled himself up into a sitting position and rested his forehead upon his knees.

“We’ve got to stop this.”

Turning his head, he peeked his eyes open to see the fire witch sitting beside him. She stared out into the distance, dejection flowing over her body as thick and opaque as the dress she wore. Those violet eyes met his and for a moment he liked her. They were much the same, the pair of them. “How?”

Her lips moved, then pressed together again and she shook her head hopelessly. Jun nodded. Their shoulders pressed together and he leaned his head against hers. Together they watched the sun rise.

As orange light spilled through the trees and across the meadow, she raised her hand and held it before him. A spark ignited. Jun screamed as the flames overtook him, and burned away through the core of him. He fell back upon the ground, rolling, trying to put them out.

Steel clashed in his hearing, and there came a cry of pain. Zoisite stood at the edge of the meadow, his sword embedded in the fawn’s corpse. Jun stared as the creature melted--first into a creature of seven limbs, wicked antlers, and a pair of bulbous multi-faceted eyes, and then into a pile of ash as it died.

His cousin remained as he was, knelt and panting. Jun climbed to his feet and managed to stumble the few steps between them. He fell to his knees before the other boy and for a moment they stared at one another.

“There’s a monster on the moon,” he said and his stomach lurched.

Zoe’s eyes were clouded with blue. “I know,” she whispered. “Jun, I’m so sorry. I didn’t--”

Jun knocked her sword to the side and pulled her into his arms, where she buried her face in his hair. He squeezed his eyes shut. “They’re coming, Zoe. We have to be go to them.”

“Who’s coming?”

“The others.”

She pulled away, searching his eyes with her own. Surprise, confusion...acceptance. It played out around her like a symphony of colour, but he knew what ever shade and shape meant as though he’d been reading it his entire life. Or lifetimes.

Zoe offered him her hand and he clasped it.

A great boom jolted him awake. Jun stared through his lashes at the tiled ceiling above him, for a moment confused by the fluorescent light and a strange, methodical beeping to his left. There were people somewhere in the room with him, shouting. Zoisite--Zoe...her voice in particular struck him, and he tried to lift his hand.

It was not Zoe who appeared above him, though, but an unfamiliar woman in a nurse’s uniform. Then several more appeared, scattering about him and clucking like hens. Jun groaned and forced his eyes to open a little wider.

There she was, his cousin, struggling against two overgrown bullies. Jun frowned. “Zoe...”

“See!” The girl jerked herself away from the surprised orderlies and took his hand.

“Coincidence,” huffed a silver-haired man in a lab-coat. Yellow lights buzzed about him like a swarm of bees. “Get Sullivan-san out of here, Mizuno. They need to work.”

“Zoe,” said the doctor, and stepped into Jun’s line of sight. He jumped and the monitor beeped frantically. The ice witch turned to look at him, her aura bright with surprise. Before any of them could say a word, the nurses shooed both Zoe and Dr. Mizuno from to room.

There was nothing that Jun could say to warn her--nothing that would get past his sandpaper throat and barely functioning limbs. Later, the doctors told him that he’d been in a coma for three weeks, following his altercation with Bachiko. Jun swallowed convulsively. Not Bachiko--Beryl. He’d had sex with the queen. He’d been r--

No. Jun closed his eyes and refused to process that thought.

When they were sure that, shockingly, there was nothing physically wrong with him other than the side effects of a coma--weak, body forgetting to function on its own, starving for a proper meal--they left him alone to “rest.” As strange as that sounded, no sooner had they left did Jun realize exactly how much he needed to sleep.

Three days passed in a blur of consciousness. Nurses would check on him, and from time to time he would be woken by his cousin stopping to check that he was still with her. Jun always woke for her, and was rewarded with mint-green relief washing over her when he did.

On the fourth day she brought her guitar to drown out the clamour of construction work outside the building.

“What’s going on?” He glanced again at the window and the tree beyond it.

“They’re rebuilding the rec room,” Zoe said as her fingers picked out random chords. “A bear went through it the other day.”

“A bear.” Jun stopped laughing when he saw her face. “Really?”

“Mr. Ruffles.”

He didn’t know who that was, but figured it was best not to ask. A nurse appeared at his doorway and glanced between the pair of them. Then he offered Zoe a smile. “Tanaka-san, do you think you can go for a walk again today?”

“About time.” Jun pushed himself a little further up than his bed had allowed, and carefully swung his legs over the side. His gangly legs were naked under the hospital gown, but Zoe stood and offered him her hand.

“I’ve got it,” he said as he put his feet to the floor. Jun stood, wobbled, and when the nurse offered him a walker he took it with a blush. He got himself as far as the door before Zoe giggled behind him. She held his robe out to him, and he snorted. “You could have warned me.”

“Yeah, but that isn’t so funny.” The girl shrugged, and though Zoe did not look exactly as she had before, he could see a ghost of her former self laid over in her smirk. He tugged his robe on and fastened it, then continued his journey out into the hall. At least he was able to go to the bathroom alone now.

Each step made him feel a little stronger, every inch furthered his goal. Zoe plodded along beside him, content just to watch his progress. “You’re making excellent progress, Tanaka-san,” said the nurse who had come along as well. “It is good to see a boy so willing to push himself.”

“It isn’t the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Jun muttered. Zoe glanced at him, understanding in her eyes. “How long until I can get out of here?”

“You mean, return to...that’s more a question for your doctor.”

“Maki-san hasn’t been by all day.”

“Patience.” The nurse favoured him with a smile. “Until then, perhaps you can make it all the way to the lunch room? There’s ice cream for both of you if you can.”

“Sure. I can watch him,” said Zoe. The nurse glanced between them, and Jun watched the nervous flitters of orange and pink swirl around his form. Gradually they settled into thin waves of yellow-green.

“Sure,” the nurse said with a nod. “But be careful and call for help if you need it.”

“We’re used to hospitals.” Zoe put her hand on his shoulder and lead Jun to the elevators.

She punched the button for them whey they arrived and they waited together for the tiny box to make its way to their floor. The girl leaned against the wall and watched him with her swirling green and hazel eyes. “You said they’re coming. Who did you mean?”

Jun frowned. “You don’t know?” She arched one blond eyebrow and an orange light zoomed about her head. He snorted and leaned in closer. The elevator dinged and a doctor bustled through the door, directly between them.

“Oh!” Mizuno turned and Jun jerked his gaze to the floor. Her shoes were even blue.

“Jun-san, Zoe-san.” The marine aura spilling about Mizuno’s feet belied the cheer in her voice as she greeted them. She shifted some papers in her arms. “I was just coming to find you. Zoe, I really do need to speak to Jun alone, now, I’m very sorry but--”

“No.”

The doctor was staring at him when he looked up at her. He glowered as best he could around the memory of her corpse. “We don’t have anything to talk about, Mizuno-san.”

“Am I to understand that you don’t want me as a doctor?” Her eyebrows inched toward her ice-blue hairline as her eyes widened a little behind her glasses. There was an innocence to the look that shot a pang of guilt through Jun’s person, but he gripped the walker and held his ground.

“It’s my fault. I don’t feel right about it,” he muttered. There were a few nurses listening in, though they pretended not to be.

“That’s perfectly alright, Jun-san,” Mizuno said, and offered him a tiny smile. “I’ll speak with the director and, together, we’ll find a doctor you’re more comfortable with. Yes?”

“Thank you very much.” Jun bowed as best he could with a walker, and Mizuno offered him one in kind. After excusing herself, she went on down the hall, presumably to work another case. Zoe stared at him.

“What’s your problem with Mizuno?”

Jun pushed the button for the elevator. The doors opened again and he went through, Zoe following in behind him. “Outside,” he said as soon as they were on their way downstairs.

“They’ll never let us out.”

“Yes they will. Just show me where to go, I’ve never been in this wing before.”

Zoe paused, then nodded. “Alright,” she shrugged and, when the doors opened, put her hand on his shoulder. She turned him left down the hall and soon enough they came to a large, open entrance with ceiling-high windows and a shiny new receptionists desk. There were quite a few people in the lobby, guests on couches and nurses and a few doctors, but not a single one looked up as the pair passed by. Jun made sure of that.

When they were outside, Zoe gave him a surprised glance. “Ok, that was anticlimatic.”

He smirked at her. A quick glance about revealed a bench beneath a nearby tree. Nodding toward it, Jun limped off in that direction and Zoe soon joined him. When they’d settled, Jun tipped his head back against the tree trunk and closed his eyes as the sunlight washed over his face. “What do you remember?”

“That demon, for starters. The...well it wasn’t a fawn.”

“Not that. I mean, thanks for killing it and all, but I meant more...” Lolling his head to the side, Jun cracked his eyes open enough to find Zoe staring at him. She jerked her gaze away and pulled her legs up to her chest.

“There were strange dreams,” she said after a few minutes. “Strange places I knew, but I didn’t know. Boys...you. And two others, mainly. And...and him.”

“Endy.” The word tasted sour upon his lips, and he felt her shudder. “Zoisite?”

Zoe jumped. Staring at him again, as though he’d grown another head, she asked in a strangled voice: “What does that mean?”

“It’s your name. Isn’t it?”

“J...Jadeite?”

“Mm. Nephrite and Kunzite are coming.” He wetted his lips and looked up into the leaves above them. “Soon. We need to get out of here.”

“Yeah, but...” The girl glanced over his body and shook her head. “Do you even know where they are?”

Jun shrugged. “They’re coming from the west.”

“Oh. That’s helpful.” Zoe rolled her eyes.

A tug in his gut--instinct, perhaps--pulled tight in that direction, though. But what was it about..?.

Not sure where it had come from precisely, Jun heard himself say: “Akiyoshido.”

Beside him, Zoe scoffed. “Isn’t that in Yamaguchi-shi? It’s on the other side of Honsu.”

“Yeah, but it makes sense.” Jun sat up and looked at her. He grabbed her hand when she looked away. “Zoe, think about it. Nephrite is the king of the west--”

“The king of the what.”

“--So it makes sense that he’d come from the west. Yamaguchi-ken is the western most point of the main island.”

“It makes about as much sense as... as...” The girl faltered and her gaze shifted behind him. Jun turned, following her line of sight across the parking lot to the psychiatric wing entrance. There was a tarp over one of the main walls, and cracks through the concrete where something very large had come barreling through the wall. Zoe gulped. “Ok, about as much sense as anything else these days.”

“You’ll come with me?”

“We don’t have any money, and you’re wearing a robe.”

Jun looked at her a long moment, then shrugged. “We go in, grab some clothes from your room, and leave. I can handle the money issue.”

The red warned him that Zoe might fight, but in the end she just sighed. “I promised I’d believe you from now on, so I’m going to. But I don’t know how you expect to get in and out again.”

“They can’t see me,” Jun shrugged. He got up, gripping his walker again. It was annoying, and he swore to himself that he wouldn’t need it anymore by the time they got to Yamaguchi-shi.

“Two tickets to Shin-Yamaguchi, please,” he said to the attendant at the train station. She took the bills he handed her and gave him back a pair of passes with a little change. Jun felt a little guilty about the change, but pocketed it anyway and walked away from the ticket booth. Zoe stood nearby with a backpack over one shoulder and her poof-ball hair pulled back into a wild ponytail. With her Red Sox cap pulled down low she looked like your average American teenage boy. He decided not to tell her that.

They’d found a cane for him while they were at the hospital, though it still looked a bit odd for a kid so young to need one. Zoe wouldn’t hear of him going without it, though, and if Jun were honest with himself he did need it. When he reached her side, he handed over her pass. She took it gingerly between two fingers, as if it would bite.

Eyeing him as she pocketed it, the girl whispered: “They bought it?”

“Obviously.” He shrugged and urged her along to the platform. The Nozomi bullet train was a straight shot through to Yamaguchi-shi, but it would be a long ride. Waiting for it were a handful of Japanese business men, a couple of families, and a whole trove of foreign tourist. For the first time in his life Jun was glad of foreigners--besides Zoe, that was--with these persons around no one would be paying too much attention to the American kid and her “halfling” friend.

Swallowing the bitter taste of that thought, Jun reminded himself to be grateful. He’d managed to make construction paper look like money, but he didn’t dare trying to disguise the two of them--not yet, anyway. Illusions would wear off after awhile, or so his memories told him, and maintaining them on a human cost more energy than he cared to expend. Just walking was taxing enough.

The train rolled into station at precisely three-twenty-five, and Jun let out a sigh of relief. They watched the other passengers unload, and then followed their own set on board. After the attendant checked their tickets, they found a pair of seats together at the back of their compartment and settled in for a very long ride.

Zoe shook him awake as they pulled into Shin-Yamaguchi station. There were only a few others in their car now, all foreigners, and Jun rubbed one eye as he sat up to stretch. “I can feel it now,” Zoe murmured.

Jun didn’t have to ask to know that she meant the sick feeling at the pit of both their stomachs. It was like someone had tied a string deep within their guts and was pulling on it, urging them on as though they were dogs on a lease. Maybe they were.

He picked up their single backpack and joined the queue waiting to get out the door before they got left of the train.

Once out of the station, they found a bus map and began to plot their course. There was no sense in trying a hotel right now, even if they had enough construction paper that they might manage to pull it off. Instead, Jun waved down a cab and bribed the man with a little extra fare to take them out to the park so early in the morning.

When the cab’s lights were distant stars in the night’s blackness, Zoe shouldered their backpack and took a good look at the insect ridden forest around them. Nothing moved out here, and it was darker than either of them had expected the world could be. She gave a soft whistle. “Where to, Sherlock?”

Jun rolled his eyes. “Why do I have to have all the answers?”

“Because you’re the one that drug us out here!” Zoe huffed, then set off down the road. Jun followed after her. At least, he figured, his eyes were slowly adjusting. If it weren’t for the red of her aura before him, Jun might not have been able to follow her.

“You’re the one that came.” Trudging after her as best he could with a cane, Jun grumbled to himself.

“Because I thought--I don’t know, I thought they’d be here! What are we supposed to do, just wait out here until--”

“Hello?”

Zoe shrieked, whirled, and punched the shadow that had appeared between the two of them. Suddenly the world was a lot brighter than it had been--Jun realized he could see perfectly the girl ahead of him, and the Arab boy on the ground between them, nursing a bloody nose.

Kunzite spat something in English, and Zoe’s aura flared a brilliant pink.


	7. Look at Those Eyes

**Nicholas**   
_May 2009._

One moment they were barreling down I-10 through the Chihuahuan desert with a cop or four screaming behind them, and the next they sat staring at the welcome sign for Roswell, NM. “Please tell me we weren’t abducted,” Keanu said, finally, and thunked his head back against the driver’s seat headrest.

“Dude, I don’t fuckin’ know.” Nick sighed and slurped on the last of his frosty. “This shit happens to me _all the time_.”

“Random time-space disruptment or cop chases?”

“Yep.”

“Comforting.” The car dinged madly as Keanu popped open his door and got out. Nick reached over and took the keys from the ignition, then followed suit. All around them the desert was quiet and cool in the pre-dawn light. Keanu squatted by the car and carded his hands through his hair. Leaning against the hood, Nick watched the boy a long moment.

They’d been together only a couple of days, now, but already they’d managed to get into more trouble than he ever had on his own. Legal trouble, anyway. The car had been reported as stolen (presumably in an effort for the Nassars to get their son back), which they’d only found out when they were busted for speeding through Bum-Fuck-Egypt. That had quickly devolved into a car chase through the desert, complete with helicopter coverage. He wondered if they’d end up on COPS.

To top everything off, Beverly had taken up residence in the backseat and wouldn’t budge. Nick glanced behind him at the corpse still sitting quietly in the car. She met his gaze and grinned, revealing the razor-sharp teeth bristling between her lips. Shuddering, he turned away. “That shit’s gonna be all over TV soon enough.”

“I know.” Keanu was still on the ground, staring down at a rather large ant scurrying between his feet. “We have to ditch it. Or...or something.”

“We’re across state lines. Ain’t that where they can’t touch us, now?”

Keanu looked up, hands across the back of his neck. He stood slowly and flopped back to lean against the car beside Nick. “In a ‘stolen’ car? I don’t know. If we stick with it we’ll just draw more attention than not.”

That was true, Nick thought, and nodded. Traveling on foot or hitchhiking wasn’t impossible, he knew, though he wondered if Keanu understood exactly the obstacles those options entailed. Probably not. Besides...“Where are we going, anyway?”

In the east, the sun broke over the horizon and sent the first rays of orange painting across the desert sand. The Arab boy pursed his lips as he watched it. “Do you ever get the feeling that we’re meant to do something, be somewhere?”

“You missin’ the part where I’m crazy, huh?”

That earned Nick a withering glare, and Keanu stood up. “Get in the car.”

New Mexico was hot. Which probably should have been obvious, Nick guessed, but it was worth mentioning. It was hot in a totally different way that Houston was hot, and before the sun was even halfway across the sky he’d already resorted to sticking his head out the window like a dog.

Even at night the heat was stifling. Cicada trilled away in the woods, and if it weren’t for the stiff breeze blowing off the lake, he might have thought himself suffocating. Never before had he been quite so glad of the prince’s penchant for midnight shenanigans.

They’d stripped as soon as they’d reached the lake and jumped in with not a doubt in their mind that it was anything less than safe. It never had been, not for the five of them, though there were tales among the commoners of great beasts that would swallow swimmers whole.

Nick rolled onto his back and stared up at the stars above. In his minds eye he connected them, envisioning glowing strands that drew the pictures of the constellations. His friends laughed, watching him draw in the air with one finger. “Going over your old stories again, are you?”

“You’d do better to pay more attention to your studies, highness,” Nick said with a chuckle. “Lots of things that can be learned from the stars.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Where you’re going, for starters.” There was a splash as one of their lot climbed back up onto the pier beside them. He sat on the end of it, his long hair choked with water and clinging to his pale skin, and looked down at Nick. “Sailors use them to navigate, don’t they?”

“That’s right,” Nick said, as he found the blazing north star, sitting in its dipper.

Water splashed into his face and he came up sputtering. “Gah!” Nick shook his head and wiped his eyes clean with one hand. “What the hell?”

“Sorry.” Keanu gritted his teeth and dodged another pot hole to China. “This road isn’t exactly in the best state.”

“Naw shit.”

They were still in the desert, but there were mountains coming up ahead and other cars on the road, now. Between the blazing heat and the angle of the sun, Nick figured it was close to midday. “Where we at?”

“Just outside of Vaughn.”

“...kay.” Nick rubbed the bridge of his nose and rescued his water bottle before it tipped over and spilt across his lap. After gulping down the last of it, he tossed it into the backseat. Beverly growled.

A little while later they stopped at a dusty Shell station just long enough to buy another pack of water bottles, a road map, and a tank of gas. Back in the car, Keanu handed over the map. “I figure we ought to put as much distance between us and Texas as we can.”

Nick nodded. What Keanu had said earlier was eating at him, and he glanced the other boy over. “That whole...disruption thing ya mentioned?”

“What about it?” Keanu took a sip of water and arched a single dark brow.

“That’s been happenin’ to me a lot. Like that whole...Lamppost thing I mentioned the other night.”

“I thought of that,” Keanu said and wetted his lips. “It didn’t make much sense when you told me, but after...” He gestured off into the distance and Nick nodded.

“Yeah. So if I’m...well, what if maybe I said that somethin’ wanted me there? Like, I thought the phone wanted me to call ya.”

“Frankly, Nick, after the past few days that sounds plausible. There has to be a reason why you kept ending up there.” They blew past a mileage sign at twenty over, but neither boy seemed to care.

“Mm.” After sitting in silence a few more minutes, Nick reached forward and twisted on the radio.

 _“...Ésta es la carne...I'm a st...Luego repollo. Esto es repollo, ¿ok?...woman, man...poquita porque...Just cried my tears, for...muy fuerte...years, you can’t be mad at me...”_

Where he honest with himself, Nick would have to admit that he’d half expected something cheesy to be playing, like Renegade or Bohemian Rhapsody. Beyonce was the lesser of the presented evils and Keanu didn’t move to change it, so Nick figured it would do. Sometime after noon they passed through Santa Fe and up into the beginnings of the rocky mountains. It was just about four PM when their station turned to static and Nick resumed playing with the dial.

 _“...Devuéleme ese corazón...a pair of...supiste valorar...Texas...crinkle my nose...disappeared right off the road! I mean, how nuts is this? I just gotta ask--I just GOTTA ask--what kind of cactus juice are they drinking down there, anyway? You have four state troopers chasing after a teenager on a straight shot through the desert, and you lose him!”_

The two boys exchanged a glance, then Keanu turned the radio off. “Think you can take this for a bit?”

Nick nodded and they pulled off to the side of the road. A fire drill later, and Nick turned them back onto the highway. Keanu settled into the passenger seat and in a matter of moments was softly snoring. Which was probably a good thing--he hadn’t slept much in the two days Nick had known him, maybe a few minutes here and there, and Nick really wasn’t sure how the guy kept going.

Night fell over the mountains, and through the trees the open sky sparkled above them. It had been so long since Nicholas had been out of Houston; he marveled at a night sky without the orange haze cast by oil plants. One time, long ago, he reckoned the whole world had skies like this.

Each star hung above them with wisps of spider’s webs hung between them. The web grew brighter the more that Nick concentrated on it, weaving slowly together into a bridge before them. Stars to twinkled beside them, within the blurred trees and mountains as they passed, and somewhere in the distance Nick could hear a strange melody playing. It called to him like the song of a long lost lover.

He was shaken awake at dawn by a wild eyed Keanu. Frowning, Nick rubbed the sleep from one eye. “What?”

“What did you do?”

Nick shoved Keanu away and sat up. He unfastened his seat-belt and took a good look through their frost covered windows. The world was pink and yellow beyond them, as the most beautiful sunrise he could imagine rose over a field of wild flowers. Their car sat in the middle of it, with no road anywhere in sight, and no tire tracks behind them.

“Huh.”

“Huh?” Keanu stared at him, an angry tick jumping in his jaw. “Huh! That’s all you have to say?”

Nick spread his hands and shrugged. He bolted out of the car before Keanu hit him. The Arab boy got out the other side, slamming the door behind him. They circled the car, meeting at the tail end, and stared out at the flowers. Off in the distance was a purple mountain range to one side, and nothing but endless forest to the rest. From the way that the horizon seemed to roll away, Nick guessed that they were somewhere in the foothills. “Um...Maybe we’re in Canada?”

Keanu was chewing on his lip again and scowling, which made him look like more of an old man than even the shock of silver hair blazoned at his temple. He carded one hand through his hair and shoved the other into his pocket. “I’m pretty sure Canada doesn’t look like this.”

“Have you ever _been_ to Canada?”

“Have you?” Nick shrugged. He hadn’t, but it seemed about as likely as anywhere else. “Maybe we hit another pot hole. This could be China.”

“It’s not China.”

“Fine. It’s Taiwan.” Sick to death of the bitching, Nick started forward through the field. The flowers grew up to his knees, which made walking rather difficult What he could smell of the place was nice--not at all like the pollution he was used to--and he only wished his nose wasn’t jammed with blood and mucus.

His companion trotted up behind him, and soon enough they’d left their car far behind.

Unlike Texas, where temperatures had already begun to soar into the nineties, the weather wherever they were was cool and crisp. Butterflies fluttered about them and crickets jumped about in their wake. Glancing back, Nick could see two long trails where they’d passed through the field and hoped that they’d be able to use that to find their way back.

The closer they came to the treeline, the worse that he began to feel about their predicament. He’d expected that they’d have found a street by now, but none appeared and the forest alarmingly dark. The foliage under the canopy was dense with bushes and flowers and brambles. Short of a machete, there would be no passing through there unharmed.

They exchanged a glance, then Keanu looked down the line of trees in either direction. “I don’t think we should split up.”

“Yeah,” said Nick. He stared off to the left, where the mountains peeked above the field. A chill ran down his spine and he backed up, bumping into the other boy.

“What?”

“This way.” Taking Keanu by the sleeve, he turned the boy around and began to walk along the forest edge. Putting the mountains to their back made his hackles rise further, but for whatever reason he felt like they needed to be away from it. If Keanu agreed, Nick didn’t know, but neither did the boy protest. When he was sure he’d be followed, he dropped Keanu’s shirt and trudged onward.

It wasn’t long before they came across the first passable break in the forest. The line of dirt was barely visible, hardly more than a game trail, leading back into the woods and out of sight. A cluster of arrow-shaped dents were present at the head of the trail, then sprinked along the path beyond. “Deer,” he said, though he wasn’t sure how he knew. He’d never hunted a deer in his life, or spent much time in the forest.

“If you say so.” Keanu cast a wary eye a the field behind them, and shrugged.. “We might as well.”

Letting Keanu go first, Nick looked once more behind them and then ducked into the woods. The light under the canopy was green and dim. Somewhere birds sang, though they saw none, and all the world seemed to be at peace. Gradually the ground shifted into a downward slope, and the trail they were following became more defined. What had been a barely perceptible path soon became an obvious foot-trail of firm sod, occasionally crossed by tree roots and fallen limbs. Around noon, their stomachs began to protest. With nothing to eat, and no knowledge of where they were, they had little choice except to press on.

Further into the forest the trees grew larger and more impressive. Nick had always thought all trees were big, but these made the ones in Houston’s parks look like ants. The path curved about the trunk of one which was so big that ten of him could have stood a circle around it, arms splayed, and still not have touched one another’s fingertips.

Keanu stopped a moment to stare up the three’s trunk, one hand pressed against a root which had shot out of the earth and made an archway over the path. After a moment, he ducked under it and they continued on their way.

“Did you hear that?”

Stopping at the same moment, each boy turned to face the woods in an opposite direction. Nick nodded silently and pressed his back to Keanu’s.

The giggling came again, like a pack of five year olds trying to be sneaky. This time it was on the path before them, but when they turned there was nothing but gently swaying leaves. Then it was on the other side, accompanied by the pattering of footsteps.

Suddenly it was all around them, circling. The footsteps grew faster with every second, and the giggling louder, but not a branch of the bushes moved. Nick gulped and felt Keanu tremble--or maybe it was him. “Who--Who’s there?” Keanu grabbed one of Nick’s wrists and held on tight.

It stopped. Nothing moved--not a wind through the trees, nor a bird in the distance, nor even did the insects dare to buzz.

A child appeared on the trail before them, and they jumped. Boy or girl, it was no longer apparent. Nick’s stomach churned as he took in the peeling, charred flesh of what had once been a person. Smoke rose in billows from the child’s body as it took one trembling step toward them, then another. It’s gaze rose, showing filmy dead eyes, and then it began to scream.

The noise rang through the forest loud as a siren. Nick and Keanu both clapped their hands to their ears, and fell to their needs.

The Arab boy reached a hand out toward the child, scooting forward on his knees. Fire erupted from the corpse, and the world dissolved into flames.

When he woke, the hillside forest was gone. In its place was an ashen landscape, rolling down the hill into a valley below. The river that snaked between the the hills was flooded in places, and blocked by debris in others. All along their side of the hill was evidence of the forest that once had been--blackened trees still standing upright, more yet that were fallen, and the remains of what looked to once have been a village toward the river’s edge. A castle stood at the crux of the two hills, a blackened thing with tattered flags and a broken drawbridge.

Keanu sat ahead of him on the path with the child’s remains sprawled in his lap. Tears streaked down the boy’s soot-marred face, which he wiped away as Nick approached. “What happened here?”

“Don’t know,” Keanu said, voice hoarse and broken. He looked toward the castle. “I think we should find out.”

Nick swallowed and fidgeted in place. He didn’t like the look of the castle, and if there were any more surprises like...like _that_...The corpse in Keanu’s lap seemed to be staring at him accusingly. Looking into its gaping, hollow sockets, he muttered, “Fine. Lets go.” With gentle hands, Keanu picked the child up and settled it to the side of the path way. They left it there and continued down through the charcoal.

The closer they came to the castle, the more bodies that they stumbled upon. None of them moved, at the very least, but the sight of each one seemed like a kick in Nick’s gut. That, combined with the smell of the place, made Nick very glad that he hadn’t had anything to eat. Beside him, Keanu wasn’t looking much better; his skin had greyed slightly, and his jaw was locked tight.

Ahead of them the castle loomed ever larger. Through the trees which sometimes obscured it, he could now see that beneath the torn banners hung from its walls were several dark shapes swinging lightly in the wind. The pair climbed up the side of a massive tree trunk sprawled across the path, and faced the first level patch of land they’d seen in ages. It looked to Nick as though it might have once been a farmer’s field; now it was a graveyard for hundreds.

“They fought here,” Keanu said.

“How can ya tell?”

Pointing at what Nick thought was a very thin cross raised upon the field, Keanu said, “That would be the battle standard. Plus...” He jumped from the tree trunk they stood upon and pulled something from the hand of a half disintegrated skeleton. Holding a sword aloft, Keanu shrugged. “Battlefield or massacre.”

“Or both,” Nick muttered. Following Keanu’s example, he landed carefully on a spot clear of human remains--at least, he hoped it was--and stared out at the scene before them. Like a ghost of what was past, he thought he could hear the clamour of steel upon steel, screams and curses, and the roar of flames. Nick shook his head, and set forward through the rubble.

Rather than toss it back into the pile, Keanu kept the sword. Though unsure as to why, when Nick spotted another among the heap, he took it up in kind. The weight and fit was wrong, and Nick frowned at the weapon. Of course it was wrong--proper swords were matched to their owners, like a pair of good shoes.

Unsure of how he knew that, Nick jogged forward to catch up with the other boy.

Beyond the field was a collection of half-broken foundations marking what had once been a village. They kept to the wide path between what were once houses, each boy staring straight ahead at the castle before them. Gradually the path became a road, and the foundations turned to stone. What had been simple square markers became half-crumbled walls, and old fences, and even gates that still swung loosely as the breeze blew by.

The road and ruins stopped before they came to the gates of the castle. A moat was sunk around the castle walls, green with scum and thick with cattails, and over it laid the broken draw bridge he’d seen from the hillside above. Ropes creaked in the wind above, a steady counterpoint to the erratic flapping of the banners in the wind. The dark shapes he’d glimpsed earlier stared down at him with wide, pecked out eyes.

Unlike the rest of the bodies they’d seen, these were not touched in anyway by flame. Cloth still clung to their form, haggard remains of white, russet and gold. All six had been hung by their necks, and picked over by the crows that perched about the rafters. One still had her hair, a dull red mass that yet retained hints of its former glory. Nearby birds cawed at the pair of boys staring up at them, and flapped their wings in defence of their prizes.

Nick’s sword dropped from his hand, and he stepped back, away from the gruesome palace. “We shouldn’t be here.” He turned, and bolted down a second path which wound downhill toward the distant rushing of the river.

The wind sprang up, pushing and tugging at him as he ran down the path. His footing slipped and he fell, tumbling down the hill into an apple orchard. For a moment, Nick merely lay there, staring upward as thunderheads began to cloud the sky. Every hair on his body began to stand as one.

He rolled before lightning sprang from the ground behind him, but his shirt was scorched and pain shot through his back. Scrambling to his feet, the boy half-ran and half-fell the rest of the way down the hill.

There was a bridge a little further down the river. Nick ran for it, and lightning snapped at his heels the whole way. Just halfway across it, there came a dull roar in the distance. He looked up to see a wall of water rushing downstream, carrying houses and people within it.

One hand grabbed at the rope bridge just before the water smacked into him. He couldn’t see; couldn’t breathe. The best that Nick could manage was to keep holding onto the rope. Eventually the water slackened. Climbing, one hand over the other like a latter, Nick broke the river’s surface with a gasp. Using the rope as a lead, he tugged himself back to the shore and pulled himself up out of the mess.

The sky rumbled overhead. Swearing, the boy got back to his feet. He limped away from the water, then eased himself into a walk, and run. Ahead of him loomed the forest, once again fresh and green, and he entered it gladly.

Something about the woods filled him with energy anew. Running--leaping--over rocks and logs in his path, Nick knew only that he was getting away. The stress in his shoulders unknotted, and he laughed with relief. He broke free of the treeline and slowed to a stop as he neared a cliff.

A boy ran past and screamed as he fell over the edge. Diving forward, Nick caught the boy’s hand and stared down into a pair of terrified, _familiar_ blue eyes.

“Climb!” Nick reached down with his other hand, his chest pressing into stone and twig as he caught hold of the boy’s shirt and tried to pull him up. The kid scrambled at the edge, but found purchase and in another moment they were both up on the cliff panting.

Flopped back on the grass, Nick lolled his head to one side and met the boy’s eyes again. It wasn’t just that this boy was alive where so many others had died, Nick realized that he knew the boy from somewhere. Somewhere...

A green twig cracked over his knuckles and Nick yelped. Rubbing his fingers,he glared up at the old man standing over him. “Pain doesn’t make this any easier, you know!”

“He’s angry,” said the blond boy across the table from him, with a smirk written across his lips. Quick as lightning, Hiddenite smacked the boy’s hands as well, and then folded his arms across his thin chest.

“Your gifts are no laughing matters.”

“We know” Nick muttered.

“Do you?” The old knight glowered at him, then walked toward a large window overlooking the forest beyond the castle walls. “It’s a beautiful day outside. I suppose you two think it unfair that your companions are out in the salle, beating one another black and blue, and you’re stuck indoors with dusty old tomes.”

“Well, if you’re asking--” the blond began, and fell short at Hiddenite’s glare.

“Do you know what the difference is between the two of you and the three of them?”

Nick shrugged. He picked a goblet from the table and sipped at the spiced wine. “We’re stuck indoors with the dusty old...tomes?”

“Unlike them, your powers will consume you.” Hiddenite swallowed thickly. He tapped his switch against one arm as he studied the pair of them. “You might think it’s fun and games now, being able see things that you do, but _think_ : What would it be like to be privy to every thought of every person around you, constantly and without filtering? To have your vision so clouded by people’s emotions that you lose the ability to see anything else? Without proper training, your powers will sully what you see or hear until you lose everything that you are. ”

“But, Endy--” began the blond.

“Has gifts of his own. In this area he is not half so adept as either of you. It may seem unfair...but life has ways of evening things out.”

Catching his classmate’s eye again, Nick caught the kindred confusion in the other boy’s eyes just before thunder rolled overhead again. He jerked his gaze up to the broiling clouds above. A network of lightning flashed within the blackest of the thunderheads and Nick leapt to his feet. He took off for the forest again, before it could strike at him again.

Left and right he dodged as lightning sizzled amongst the trees. Wood exploded and the underbrush caught fire. He just kept running, though his lungs burned and eyes stung with smoke. Pulling his shirt up over his mouth, Nick tripped and sprawled across the forest floor. A few drops sprinkled his arms, and then the heavens upended themselves over the earth.

Rolling over, Nick let the water hit his face and course over his body. He was soon chilled to the bone, but it was better than the heat. He opened his eyes and saw a figure above him, a shady haze of a woman with a bow slung over her shoulder. She knelt beside him and in a crack of lightning he could see her smile. “Are you trying to catch your death, then, good sir?”

“More like a nymph.” She slapped his chest, stood, and offered him a hand up.

They sat at the edge of a meadow, each so still that the fawn grazing nearby did not seem at all bothered. Nick let the woman curl against his side, her breath easy upon his neck. Carefully he brushed a lock of dark hair behind her ear, looking in wonder at the mighty huntress he held. There’d been many a woman in his life, but never one so bold as to take up the dress and weapon of a man. As she slept, he marked the callouses upon her hands, and the faint traces of wounds past upon her arms. This was a woman who had known war, he realized with a sudden sickness.

Perhaps she had a little of the psychic about her after all, for the woman roused and kissed his neck. “You’re staring at me.”

He reached for her hand and held it aloft, and with his fingers he caressed the roughness of her palm. “When have you held a sword?”

“A sword?” The woman paused, but he felt her tense beneath his arm. “No. Just hoes and butcher knives. Why would you think a sword?”

“Madness,” he said with a laugh. He kissed her temple, and lingered. The temptation was there--just a quick peek at what she hid from him, a brush. She’d never know. Nick pulled away and smiled at her. “Forget it.”

Those dark green eyes--hunter’s green, he thought--stared at him, accusing. Her fists trembled at her sides, and he knew she wanted to hit him. Finally, she growled and turned to stalk half across the meadow. “This is...this is impossible!”

“Says the poacher.”

“You didn’t have a problem with that a few days ago!” The woman rounded on him, finger out as though to poke him. Nicholas stood his ground, jaw clenched and eyes narrowed. The setting sun was casting streamers of orange across the sky, igniting the hidden red within the woman’s hair. His heart told him how beautiful she was, and he nearly lost his anger.

“I forgave a girl trying to feed her family,” he reminded her in a whisper. “Not...” Swallowing thickly, Nick looked away. “We need a plan. This cannot continue.”

“I can’t hide this anymore,” said the woman, and she rubbed one arm, “And we can’t do this anymore.”

“Obviously.”

They stared at one another a moment longer, and this time it was she that looked away frist. The woman took a step back, then another. Finally she turned and ran into the forest, and Nick did not follow.

“Traitor,” hissed a voice.

Behind him stood the fawn, its eyes grown as large as dinner plates in its misshapen head. It hissed again, revealing wicked fangs too big for its mouth. Nicholas yelped as it charged him. He dived to one side, narrowly missing an antler as it sprouted from the fawn’s forehead.

“I’m not!” Climbing to his feet, Nick found stone under his feet and his voice snatched by the wind. He turned in a circle, and clutched the nearest parapet as dizziness washed over him. Nearby banners flapped in the breeze, and beneath him swayed the disintegrating nobility on their ropes.

After losing the lunch he hadn’t had, Nick wiped his wrist across his lips and looked out at the darkening hillside. Even with night drawn he could see the destruction stretching through the river valley. “Why did they do this?”

“I don’t know.”

He jumped, and turned to find the boy from earlier at his side. Whoever he was, he didn’t seem to be a threat--not like the others. Relaxing, Nick leaned once more against the parapet and wished the smell of decay from his nose.

Just about to turn away, a light flickered into being further down the valley. Nick grabbed the boy’s shoulder. “What do you think that is?”

“I think it’s important,” said the boy after a pause.

“Yeah,” Nick said, his stomach rolling again in sickness, “Me too.”

Together they turned for the stair, and then they were running down it. The steps were steep, and thin, and would be a hazard even if they weren’t slick with--water? Struck by the sudden stench of death, Nick wasn’t so sure. He stopped at the first landing, next to a door, just before a lump stretched upon the next flight down.

A hand clamped to his mouth, Nick knelt down and reached forward until his fingers tangled into a knotted mass of hair. He lifted the head until he make out, by the light of a moonlight window, the cold and tortured face of his mentor. Hiddenite’s belly had been slit, and his guts strew down the staircase. His eyes rose to meet Nick’s. Though his voice shook, Nick heard him clear as a bell: “The King, boy. Save your King.”

He resettled Hiddenite’s head as carefully as he could, and burst through the door into the corridor beyond.

Before him marched a man, tall and broad-shouldered with shocking white hair. The heavy doors to the audience chamber closed behind them. As the doors struck home, the hall lit with the light of day and the figure momentarily overlaid with the image of a familiar boy with dark hair, it then faded altogether. Like a whisper, a memory, he thought he heard a familiar voice say:

“I am now lord general, as you both should be aware...”

Signs of a great battle were everywhere. Furniture was strewn, the rushes tossed asunder, and doors hung by splintered hinges. The castle had been ransacked, and all that was left were dark stains of blood and bodies. Nick stepped over a fallen chambermaid, telling himself that he did not see her for there was nothing that he could do. _Amethyst_ , whispered the back of his mind; _her name was Amethyst_.

Marching on down the hall, one of his hands moved to the sword hilt at his hip. He glanced this way and that, but no living soul greeted him save a half-wild bitch that growled from a corner and then ran with her tail between her legs.

Beyond broken windows, birds sang and a gentle breeze blew in to rustle dust and debris about the room.

Nick turned to the sound of panting breath behind him.

Beverly stood at the end of the hall, and it was only at the sight of her did Nick remember they’d left her in the car. The ghoul stared at him, unblinking, and his blood ran cold. She growled, much like the bitch that had gone scampering, and Nick took a step backward. Looking down, he saw that Amethyst had her eyes open, now, and she stared at him.

Her lips moved, soundlessly, as he backed away until he touched a door behind him. Beverly advanced, her corpse moving in stiff, peculiar twitches. Nick yanked the door open and ran.

Tree trunks blurred past him and Nick didn’t care a wit how he’d come to the forest again. He could hear the ghoul behind him; her panting breath and animalistic growls sent shivers of terror up his spine, obliterating any tire or hurt. A path had come underfoot again, though it was grown over in spots. Following it as best he could, he thought he might soon lose her and turned his head to look.

Smacking into someone in his path, they tumbled down the side of a hill rise and landed in the dead leaves below. As Nick worked himself clear of the other boy, he realized it was the same blond he’d seen several times already. “You’re real!”

“Of course I’m real.” The boy pushed him away, and sat up. “What else would I be?”

A terrible, ragged breathing came from the woods. They turned as one to see the old woman crouched beneath a nearby tree, staring at them. She wore a torn floral print dress over her sinew and skin corpse, hunched over in a squat like a primate. Beverly stared at them a moment, then crawled forward upon her hands and knees.

Both boys scrambled backward on hands and knees for every step that she took. “Masters...Why run? Stay with us here, where you belong.”

“Go away.” Nicholas climbed to his feet and grabbed the boy up with him. Together, the two boys fled the scene, and this time the forest parted for them. The very trees got up and moved to block the demon in behind them, they were able to make an escape. He only prayed that Beverly wouldn’t find Keanu.

The woods ended abruptly at the crest of a hill--just a clearing, small and circular, but enough that they could see the countryside around them. While the other boy bent over to catch his breath, Nick turned in a circle and looked over the hillside.

“Where are we going?”

Finally he found it, a single light in the distance. He pointed to it. “There. We have to make it there.”

Though unsure of how he knew that--as unsure as he was of how exactly trees could walk--Nick did not stop to question it. A scream came from behind them, like from the very gates of Hell, and Nick fled. His companion followed, and together they plunged once again into the dark trees.

Jumping logs and gullies, they ran until their lungs begged for mercy. Even upon the streets Nick had never had to run so fast, so long. Though every portion of him wanted to quit, the screams of the thwarted spirit urged him onward.

“Help!”

Stumbling to a halt, Nick turned and saw the boy fall. Beverly clutched at his leg, more teeth than human now, and her claw-like fingers dug into the boy’s leg. “Jade!”

He grabbed one of the boy’s flailing hands, then his arm and tried to tug him away from the monster. Beverly was strong for a corpse, and she held on even as the boy turned to kick at her with his free leg. “Leave. Me. Alone!”

A sickening squelch punctuated a last, sharp kick. Beverly shrieked and let go of the boy, who was on his feet in an instant. They high-tailed it out of there, and this time she did not follow. “What is that thing?” the boy gasped.

“Dunno,” said Nick, through gritted teeth.

“Ne--”

They stopped together as they entered a sudden clearing. In front of them was a shrine of white marble nestled in a field of wild flowers, with columns that reached into the sky. The pair exchanged a glance, and then walked together toward it. Nick couldn’t help a faint sense of deja vu as the flowers brushed against his legs.

There were three steps that lead up to the flat of the shrine, and a lone pedestal was set in the middle. Nick crossed to it without a word. Five rocks were sat upon the pedestal: four each to the cardinal point and the fifth in the center. His mouth went dry as he realized, as instinctively as he’d known Hiddenite and Amethyst, that these stones were...

“Kunzite.” Nick touched the pink gem to the south.

His companion nodded, and Nick followed the boy’s gaze to a yellow-green stone to the north. “Zoisite.” Then he looked to the west. Frowning, he looked at his companion: “Nephrite.”

Like a bell inside of him had been run, like a peon to the gods, the world seemed to snap into focus; a focus he’d never realized he’d lost in the first place. Looking at the boy across from him now, he was no longer a stranger but a long lost friend. “Jadeite.”

As soon as the relief had come, it vanished as they both looked to the golden crystal at the pedestal’s center. It darkened and cracked before their eyes, and they each stepped away from the pedestal. Step after step they moved backward as the pedestal collapsed and the marble began to crack beneath their feet. Nicholas had but one moment to look up and realize just how far from Jadeite that he’d drifted before the shrine gave way. He collapsed into darkness, aware only of a soft, rasping laugh.

“Nick. Nephrite.”

Keanu stared down at him, eyebrows furrowed and scowling. For a moment Nick’s vision went blurry, and he thought he saw a ghost of silver hair and a green tabard, before the work regained itself again. His friend wetted his lips, then scratched his hair. “C’mon man, focus.”

Wherever they were, it was freezing. “I am focusing.”

A moment later, Nick managed to push himself up into a sit. He rubbed his eyes clean and glanced around at the icy cavern they stood in. His breath pooled in the air before him and he shivered. “Where...”

“Not a clue.” Keanu dropped a heavy cloak around Nick’s shoulders as he stood up. Nick drew it close and pretended to ignore the dark stains across the front of it. “But I’m pretty sure it isn’t Taiwan. Or China.”

“Hardy-har,” Nick muttered. There was nothing about them but an iced stream and a lot of rock, and the only light came from...Keanu. Nick frowned and turned to look at his friend, suddenly realizing that the boy had, in his absence, become a glow worm.

Not literally, thank God, but at this point Nicholas wouldn’t have been surprised.

Keanu seemed unware of it, or used to it. “What uh...happened to your hair, man?”

“My hair?”

Nick flicked his fingers in Keanu’s direction, “It’s...y’know, never mind.”

Though he looked ready to protest, he didn’t, and Nick was glad of it. Somehow, he didn’t think Keanu would take kindly to knowing that he had skunk stripes going down both sides of his head; it wasn’t exactly dignified.

“I think the water goes on that way,” Keanu said and gestured off to the left, “but it goes under a... well, a glacier. I would have gone the other way, but I didn’t want to leave you alone in the dark.”

“So yer aware of your lightning bug heritage, huh?”

That earned him a glower fit for an award, then Keanu marched past and down the opposite end of the stream. With little choice otherwise, Nicholas followed. As they went, Nicholas realized two things: that the light Keanu cast left no shadows, and that there was noise in the cave which didn’t come from either of them. It was a breathing, so much akin to Beverly in the woods that Nick’s blood began to race once again.

“Why’s it always the chasing?”

“Hm?” Keanu glanced back at him. Nick shook his head.

The stream never seemed to end, but it did thaw. Gradually the ice broke upon its surface and it began to flow. Nick looked down from time to time and saw the stream deepen and widen and become a river. Under the clear water, dark shapes moved beneath. Some were tiny minnows, and then eels the size of his arm. Further down, so far that Keanu’s light only touched by a small degree, moved of creatures a scale he’d only encountered in nightmares. With a shuddered, Nick told himself not to look.

Keanu slowed to a halt in front of him, and they stopped together at a point where their path had elevated above the water. The Arab boy glanced out over it, then to the side where another path went further upward. He seemed conflicted, but Nick felt something, then, like a small tug at the pit of his stomach.

“I think we should go that way.”

Their eyes met a moment, then Keanu nodded. “Lead on,” he said. Though Nick wanted to protest that Keanu was their light, he stepped forward and lead their way up the trail. Soon he didn’t need the cloak any more, and he dropped it on a boulder as they passed.

His ears popped, and his legs hurt, and they could no longer hear the sound of the river below, but the tug in Nick’s gut grew ever stronger. Before long they were reduced to crawling through a tiny space, where only the fresh air blowing in their face was any indication that they were going in the right direction. Nicholas sent up a silent prayer that this cavern would break the surface before it grew any smaller--already the rock was scraping against his back, making it hard to crawl. Then his hand met grass, instead of rock, and he pulled himself free of the cave.

Above them, through black shapes which looked like trees, he could see a star spangled sky stretched above him. Breathing a sigh of relief, Nick turned and offered a hand to Keanu. A few moments later they were both up on their feet, and dusting as much of the dirt off their clothes as they could.

Almost immediately Keanu’s presence began to brighten the darkness around them--at least enough that they could see. Though he still wasn’t sure how Keanu did that, he wasn’t about to complain. The area that they’d come out of was a tiny little hole in the forest floor. It didn’t quite look or feel like the same forest as before, and he hoped there wouldn’t be any more corpses.

As if on cue, Keanu asked: “Where are we?”

The tug he’d felt earlier had left him as quickly as it’d come, so Nick shrugged. “Fuck if I know.”

“Wonderful.” The Arab boy shook his head and took a few steps away from the cave. There wasn’t any real telling where they are, but there was at least no howling of wolves or screaming of bobcats. Always a good sign, that.

“Maybe this way,” Keanu said. Nick shrugged and followed.

Perhaps it was minutes later, perhaps hours (It was kind of impossible to tell, Nick thought, everything out here looked essentially the same. Except, he amended, a collection of strange, tiny stone houses they had passed at one point. That was pretty fucking weird.) there came a familiar sound from ahead of them. A pair of headlights passed through the trees, and rolled to a stop several yards to their left.

Keanu caught Nick’s arm as if to hold him back. “You don’t gotta warn me,” Nick muttered.

The car stayed as it was for a few moments, and then some doors shut. Another minute passed as the car circled back around and left the way it had come. Out of the darkness, two people began to shout at each other in a foreign language Nick figured was probably some kind of Asian. It sounded a lot like the kind of babble he’d hear in the Asian district, anyway.

This time it was his turn to catch Keanu’s arm. “Dude. Are ya fuckin’ insane?”

The Arab raised a brow at him. “What?”

“Two people inna woods shoutin’ at each other at _night_. That shit ain’t the kind ya wanna be messin’ with, trust me.”

“Says the kid who just skipped the border on the magical cave express.”

Nick let him go and trudged begrudgingly behind as his companion lead the way to the roadside. Maybe Keanu’s light wasn’t visible if you weren’t with him, Nick considered, as neither of the teenagers causing the commotion seemed to notice the boy until he walked between them.

“Hello?”

The girl shrieked, whirled, and clobbered Keanu straight in the nose. Nick smothered a snicker as his friend crumpled. The two teens stared in shock. Keanu touched a hand to his nose and looked at the blood. “Goddamn it, Zoisite, you--You’re a _girl_?”

There was a pause, a collective holding of breaths, as Zoisite gaped at Keanu, a blush on her cheeks. A second later she pulled her fist back and slugged him again. Silver tongued, Keanu was not.

Three hours later, the four of them sat in a hotel so seedy that even Nicholas worried if they would make it out alive. Zoisite--Zoe, he reminded himself--assured them that Japan was “a far safer country than ‘the States,’ statistically,” but if there was one thing that Nick knew about statistics, it was that people who quoted them were usually in the percentage who’d never experienced any of the shit they wanted to quote you statistics about.

Nick immediately took residence in a chair by a window, across the room from the door so that he could stare at it. Keanu put the chain into place, then turned to stare at the collection of them. They were a strange lot, Nick figured, as though nature had tried, and failed, to recreate what had once been.

Jadeite was Asian--King of the East, Nicholas mentally snickered--but blond and blue eyed, and Nick guessed that meant he was a mutt of some kind. The boy barely came up to Nick or Keanu’s chests, but his posture said that he could handle himself, if it came down to it. Catching the boy’s eye, Nick felt the long distant spark of familiarity travel between them and knew that they would have much to discuss. Or would, if they had a common language.

“So, what do we do?” Zoe sat on one of the two beds, legs crossed indian-style, and glowering at Keanu. As much as Nick was amused by Keanu’s error, he had to admit some surprise himself. The image of Zoicite was fuzzy in his head, but the strawberry-blond twig of a girl in front of him did in no way match with it, and it wasn’t just for her sex.

“I don’t know,” Keanu admitted after a hesitation. He sat on the other bed, leaned forward upon his knees, and rubbed his hands together. “We’re here for a reason.”

“To save our king?” Nick chuckled faintly, until he noticed the stricken looks of the other two. Jun, of course, just seemed confused.

Slowly, Zoicite shook her head. There were tears in her eyes, though they did not spill, as she said: “No. I think we have to kill him.”


	8. No More

**Keanu**   
_July 2009. Tokyo, Japan._

The hotel room was quiet but for the fan chugging away overhead and the snores of his companions. Keanu laid on one of the beds, feeling a little guilty for taking it though Nick had insisted on camping out on the floor. “I’m used to it,” the boy had grunted, put his back to the wall, and gone unconscious before any protest could be made. Zoe and Jun had collapsed together on the other bed, back to back. Glancing at them, Keanu had to admit a twinge of jealousy for how close they were. Though there was a part of him who recognized his three companions, there was also a large portion which was hyper aware of the fact that he had run away from home, gone on the lamb, been drug through some ancient relic, and somehow come out on the other side of the planet only to end up in a damn-near-derelict hotel room with three total strangers.

Oh, and he’d been punched in the nose. Twice. He rubbed his sinuses with both hands and yawned.

“Sorry about that.”

Startled, Keanu jumped lightly and turned to see Zoe shift slightly. She gestured loosely to his face. “Your nose. It was a gut reaction.”

Keanu pursed his lips and then shook his head. “Nah. I guess I deserved it...kinda. Er, I mean...it isn’t...it’s just...”

Her laugh was soft, and a little raspy. “S’okay, I kinda get it.”

Wincing, Keanu watched as she rolled onto her back and tucked her hands under her neck. “It was still stupid of me. Are you--it’s not my place and all, but--”

“Am I okay with it?”

“Yeah.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, I guess...” Zoe let it drift for so long that Keanu thought she might have gone back to sleep. Then she continued, “A few years ago, I started having these weird blackouts. I’d go past a mirror, or see my reflection on something, and then suddenly I’d be somewhere else, and it’d be hours later, and I couldn’t remember anything I’d said or done. For awhile I didn’t mention it to anybody, because it didn’t seem like anyone noticed. I kind of hoped they didn’t.

“Then one day I woke up in the bathroom and my hair had been bleached, and I’d bound up my chest, and bought a whole bunch of boy’s clothes. All on my dad’s credit card. How screwed up is that?” She laughed, faintly, and Keanu thought she might have been crying. “I blackout and give myself makeovers. If that isn’t some kind of special...We had a big fight, me and my mom and dad, and they didn’t want to hear that I didn’t remember it. They thought I was just trying to get out of trouble. Can’t blame them, really, it looked pretty bad.”

“The bleaching job or the bill?” Keanu tried to crack a smile. To his relief, she laughed.

“Both? I tried to do the bleaching myself, apparently...which makes some sense. It’s kind of hard to find a salon that deals with white hair around here. It still came out orange. I’m lucky my hair grows fast. But the fight...they didn’t trust me for awhile after that, and it wasn’t long after that I caught my mom starting to give me these weird looks. She’d reference some conversation we’d supposedly had, and I wouldn’t know what she was talking about, but then she’d shut down and refuse to discuss it.”

“Do you know what was going on?”

Zoe hesitated. “Some of it. I’ve had a...a lot of therapy, since then. I found conversations I didn’t know I’d had, relived things I didn’t realize I’d done. It’s weird. Even now, the memories don’t settle quite right. Like I was inside my head, watching through a window as someone else controlled me.

“My doctor said that the blackouts were a way of protecting myself. A part of me doesn’t want to admit to all of this, for whatever reason, so I disassociate myself. Like I can’t feel guilty over it, or it can’t hurt me, if I wasn’t the one that did it, yanno?”

Keanu nodded, though he wasn’t sure if she could see him. “I get it.”

“Do you.”

He turned onto his side and pooled his head against the crook of his elbow. “Not entirely. I haven’t done that. But I can think I can see why someone would want to, even if wasn’t intentional. You never figured out why?”

“No, but I’m pretty sure all of this...Not that she’d believe _this_ , either.”

“She?”

“My doctor.” Zoe stretched and turned to face him in kind. They stared across the gap between the beds and Keanu gulped as their eyes met. The obstinate part of him wanted to remind him that this girl was a stranger, and the rest was content to cloud all of that over with what felt like eons of familiarity. This was a boy he’d grown up with, who had had his back in war, whom he had laughed with, and cried with, and whose death he had--No. Jerking himself back to the present, he ignored the ghost like whispers of the past and met her eyes now.

“You’re still in therapy?”

She shook her head just slightly, barely perceptible in the dark. “It’s a bit worse than that.” Zoe told him, briefly, of where she and Jun had spent the last two years and their recent escape. Never before had Keanu been annoyed that someone had actually sought help when they needed it. When he took a step back, Keanu knew that it wasn’t really that which bothered him, but the fact that their already complicated situation had just compounded before his eyes.

“You should try to get some sleep,” he said when she’d finished. “We’re all going to need our rest.”

“So should you.” Despite her reproach, the girl snuggled down a little further into the bed. Keanu thought she might have gone to sleep, but then she said: “Kunz--Keanu?”

“Yeah?”

“Do we really have to do this?”

For a long moment, Keanu stared into the darkness where he knew his friend’s face was. He pretended he could see Zoicite as he had been: those big blue eyes and tame, blond curls...

They vacated with the dawn; Jun took Nick with him to pay, and then two boys met Keanu and Zoe a block down the road. Breakfast was bought at a convenience store where an attendant gave them the eye as they milled about the shop. Jun and Zoe handled the selection, and then paid the clerk, who handed over their change. Keanu noticed Zoe giving Jun a sidelong glance, but she didn’t say anything.

Once they were outside again, the two blonds led them down the street over an intense conversation. Though he didn’t understand a word of it, Keanu didn’t like the sound of whatever they were discussing. He shared a look with Nick, who seemed to share his misgivings. Zoe stopped at an intersection, glanced about, then lead them down the street to a small park.

Already people were about, getting ready for their day: shopkeepers swept the sidewalk outside their shops; delivery men sped past on bicycles; and a few cars passed through mostly empty streets. They walked past a man putting fresh eggs into a vending machine, and Keanu stopped to stare a moment.

Zoe caught his wrist and tugged him along before the man noticed him. “Come on, we gotta talk.”

“What was the problem at the shop?” They found an area of grass near a playground and sat down. Jun began to pass around some large, white balls of rice and bottles of milk. Zoe took hers and bit into it before she answered.

“You know where we just came from”

“We do?” Nick swallowed his mouthful of food.

Zoe shook her head and, after a sip of her milk, related the same short story she’d told Keanu the night before. “So, obviously, we don’t have any money.”

“Uh...” Keanu and Nick stared at her a long moment, then Keanu leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Then exactly how...?”

Zoe turned to Jun, and, a short command later, he produced a slip of pink construction paper from his pocket. The boy turned it over a few times, letting them get a good look at it. Then it was a ten-thousand yen note, perfect in every way. He handed it to Nick, who looked it over before handing it on to Keanu. Jun said, and Zoe translated: “The illusion won’t last forever, but he doesn’t know how long. We haven’t had a chance to time it.”

Keanu frowned. “You got change at that store.”

Making a face, Zoe nodded. “Mm.”

Nick snickered. “That’s brilliant.”

“That’s stealing.” Keanu handed the construction paper money back to Jun and looked at his untouched breakfast. He took a bite, regardless of the unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach. To his surprise the ball was filled with a meat of some kind. It wasn’t bad.

“All of it’s stealin’, if ya wanna get technical ‘bout it. Y’do what ya gotta do.” Nick shrugged and polished off his meal.

He hated that Nick had a point, but that was the reality of the situation. What else where they supposed to do? Zoe didn’t say anything more about it; Keanu took her silence for agreement. “We need a plan.”

“I dinnit wanna say anythin’ bout it afore, but what’s with this killin’ business? I don’t see any reason...”

Keanu shifted uncomfortably, and rubbed the back of his neck. He licked his lips and thought a moment before saying: “I don’t remember everything. If any of you do, please say so. But...we were given an order, by the last real king. So it’s not exactly…I don’t know where you got the idea that we have to save him. Endymion can’t have taken the throne, when there is no throne to take. God this sounds....”

Zoe lifted her eyebrows. “Insane?”

He winced. “Sorry, I didn’t--”

“No, it pretty well is.” She gave him a smirk and shrugged. “That’s kind of normal, anymore. If we’re going with all this being real--and the five of us falling under the same delusion mostly separate of one another suggests that it is--then we have to take what we know of the past seriously.”

There was a pause as Jun asked something, and Zoe spent a minute relaying what they were saying. What she’d said dawned on Keanu as he finished off his milk. When she’d finished with Jun, he frowned at the pair of them. “Five?”

The girl blinked at him, then looked down at her unfinished rice ball. “Beryl.”

Nick put his hand on his cheek, leaning forward a little. “The queen?”

“Look, that’s best not tampered with, OK?” Zoe scowled at the pair of them. Beside her, Jun had gone tense and was staring out into the park. Keanu followed his line of sight, but didn’t see anything that would set the boy on alert. Despite this, Jun’s hand clutched, white knuckled, at his legs, and his jaw had gone tight. “We really don’t need her.”

“But if she knows somethin’ we don’t--,” began Nick.

“She doesn’t!”

The pair glowered at one another, and Keanu raised both his hands before it could escalate further. “Alright! We’ll talk about that later. For right now, we need to figure out where we’re going. Hell, this is all moot as we don’t even know where Endymion is.”

Once again, Zoe looked as guilty as a fox in a chicken coop. Keanu sighed and waved her on with a flick of his wrist. When she’d gulped down the last of her breakfast, Zoe cast a glance at Jun, who hadn’t budged, and then she began to elaborate on their mutual stories.

Jun flinched every time Bachiko was mentioned. It was obvious that there was a history there which Zoe didn’t care to share, and Keanu wasn’t at all sure he wanted to go into it, either--doubly so by the time that she finished. He sat with his elbows on his knees, knuckles against his lips, and stared down into the grass. They were all looking at him, save for Jun, just as they always had.

Keanu scrubbed his hands over his face. “We either go to Tokyo and find this ‘Chiba Mamoru’...”

“Or?” Nick was munching on a blade of grass, his green eyes watching Keanu with a strange, demanding sort of patience.

“Or...we don’t.”

Zoe watched him a long moment, then nodded. She related this to Jun. “He wants to know--Omae nani itten da yo?”

Jun glanced at her a brief second before his attention focused once more without. He jerked his chin toward the park at large and gave a quick answer. The girl craned her neck to see about him, then gave him a confused look. “He...wants to know who the people following you are.”

Alarm shot through Keanu’s veins and Nick sat up straight. For a moment, his heart beating in his throat, Keanu looked wildly about but saw nothing suspicious. Zoe waved her hands at them. “Relax. I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

“Wha’d’you mean?” Nick glared at her, still tense as a guitar string. She sighed.

“Really, I don’t know. He said there are people standing over there, watching us, but…well, look.”

She’d gestured to a particular tree beside a basketball court. Sure enough, there was no one there at all; no one even in the vicinity. Keanu relaxed a little. “Does he often--”

“Sometimes, yeah.”

Nick was still staring, though, as was Jun. Since neither seemed inclined to say much of anything, Keanu shook his head and began to pick up their mess. “We should find some place less public.”

Zoe nodded and got up to help him. A short while later they’d pried the other two up and prompted them to walk. Without any real idea of what they were doing or where they were going, they continued on aimlessly until Zoe suddenly came to a halt. Nick ran into her and cursed, but she shushed him, snapped something at Jun, and, together, they shoved the two Americans into an alley.

“What the hell?”

“Shut up a minute.” Less than a second later, a police car went past on the road. Immediately, Zoe and Jun both relaxed.

Jun shook his head and muttered something to himself as he sat down on a random crate. Nick gave them both a weird look. “Aight, you don’t like the po-po, that it?”

“No, but that isn’t it.” Leaning against one of the buildings they were between, Zoe chewed her bottom lip as she looked up at the pair of them. “We better figure out what we’re doing soon, because this is going to get real difficult, real quick.”

“Especially if you keep goin’ around pushin’ people inta alleys like that.”

“Because you two are escapees?” Keanu lifted a brow.

Ignoring Nick, Zoe seemed to waver on the point. “Not...yes and no. Even without the two of you, we’d still be in a pretty poor position on our own, what with--”

Jun jumped to his feet and backed into Keanu. Stumbling, they looked to the head of the alley where the cop car was back. The man inside was staring out at them and talking into his radio. Zoe made a hissing sound, then turned and ran. The others followed soon behind, and the cop car door slammed.

A chain link fence backed the alley, but Zoe and Nicholas scaled it like cats in a tree. Nick perched at the stop to help Keanu and Jun up while Zoe went ahead on the other side. She paused at the other end of the alley, watching their exit as the others caught up to them. The fence put up a clamour as the officer mounted it behind them; they turned down the other street, much more crowded than the one they’d been on, and dipped and dodged through the crowd.

There was a siren ahead of them. Keanu looked up to see another police car--back up, probably--turn the corner they were running toward. Jun grabbed his shoulder and pulled him down another alley. This one lead into a smaller side street that was too thin for vehicles. Dodging mothers with shopping bags and bicycle traffic, the pair kept on running until the wails of sirens were far behind them.

Finally, they stopped in a high-walled residential area. Jun squatted in the alcove entrance to someone’s yard, and Keanu stood with him. After a few minutes, he peeked out into the road in hopes that the others might come around the corner. They didn’t, and he growled. “Dammit.”

Jun looked up at him, eyebrows raised. “We lost the others,” Keanu said, and Jun just stared. _This_ , he thought, _is just fucking perfect_.

When the heat had died down, the pair returned to where they’d last seen their friends. It wasn’t crawling with cops, like Keanu had expected, but neither was there any sign of Zoe or Nick. The boy he was with seemed to be edgy, as well. His eyes kept darting this way and that, like a tiger in a cage, and he jumped even at cars that loosely resembled police vehicles.

Finally, a little after noon, they stopped by some of the weirdest vending machines Keanu had seen in his life. There were some with drinks, of course, but there was also hot and cold food, fresh eggs, underwear, movies, an assortment of toys, and umbrellas. It was, in a way, much like a mini shopping mall all down a short hill just outside of a fresh fish market.

Jun used some of the legal tender he’d gotten to buy them food, and they sat on an out-of-the-way curb to eat. With little else to do, Keanu said around his food: “Hal tatakallam al-lughah al-'arabīyah?”

The boy gave him a flat look and didn’t respond. After another bite of...it may have been octopus, Keanu tried: “¿Hablas español?”

That, at least, got a shake of Jun’s head. The boy sipped his soda, then offered: “English...small?...is know.”

“Ah...” Only a lifetime of working around languages he half-understood enabled Keanu to decode that automatically. At least, he figured, there was a possibility that Jun understood more than they thought.

A pair of boots stopped before them and they looked up at a police officer. Keanu’s heart skipped a beat, but Jun addressed him quickly. The man’s attention went straight to Jun, though Keanu noticed a twinge of surprise from the officer. After a few moments, Jun opened the backpack on his shoulder and took out two passports.

There was a long moment as the man examined them, turning them over several times and flipping through the pages. He held on to them so long that Keanu was sure there was something wrong with them.

Finally, the officer handed the papers back to him. He and jun exchanged a few more words, then Jun put the papers away and bowed to the officer. Unsure of what else to do, Keanu did the same, and the man left without another word.

Jun shrugged at him, then slowly he tried: “Police wa...we--us--OK is to be stop.”

“Why is...” Keanu frowned. He gestured for the bag and Jun handed it over. Looking inside, he found nothing but a pile of construction paper. Suddenly, Keanu understood why Zoe hadn’t wanted them to get stopped, even if Jun’s illusions had managed to hold up in the end.

They cleaned up their mess and went back to searching. This time there were no helpful gut-feelings, and Keanu noticed after a time that Jun had begun to glance over his shoulder every so often.

“What is it?”

There was a pause as Jun glanced behind them again. Keanu followed suit, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Jun shook his head in a barely perceptible fashion, and continued to walk; this time he kept his eyes forward. Though the hairs on the back of Keanu’s neck began to rise, he let this go in hopes of finally running into their lost friends.

They were passing by some kind of shop when Jun stopped completely. Keanu continued a few steps more before he noticed, and when he looked back he found the boy watching a small TV on the front of yet another vending machine. He stepped closer to get out of the flow of pedestrian traffic.

The Japanese news seemed to be as flashy as the rest of the country, Keanu thought with some surprise. All around the anchor’s cheerful face were flashing white kanji and effect boxes in brilliant pinks, blues, and yellows. Small cartoon characters danced around the bottom of the screen as the ticker cycled through its messages. To the anchor’s left was a picture of a Japanese girl with chemically fried red hair. “Bachiko,” Jun muttered. “Beryl.” Keanu frowned at the TV, and wished he’d had the forethought to take the Japanese classes his school had offered. Spanish had just seemed more...relevant, somehow.

Pictures of Zoe and Jun followed in turn, and he felt, more than saw, the boy beside him tense. They turned as one and left, praying that no one in the vicinity had been paying too much attention to the news.

Moving back into the side streets, Keanu wasn’t at all sure what to do. Night was beginning to fall, and Yamaguchi-shii was proving much larger than he’d anticipated. They found the park again and another bank of vending machines. Carrying their prizes into the grass, they settled down not too far away from where a group of boys were playing a game of soccer. No one seemed particularly interested in them, and for that Keanu was glad.

Back in his Boy Scout days, they had always said that in the event you became lost you should pick a place and stay there until your party found you again. That concept was a good one in the wild, probably, but Keanu didn’t think it would pan out too well in this situation--if both groups tried the same thing, they’d just be stuck doing nothing. On the other hand, they had tried roaming about and hadn’t found their prey, so perhaps it was time to try staying put.

Keanu groaned and thumped his head back on the tree behind him. He stared up into its branches, watching a particular little song bird hop along the limb. It was a drab little thing for the most part, brown and grey, except for its chest--that was red as blood. Something about this nagged at the back of his head.

“Kunzite.”

Pulling his attention from the trees, Kunzite faced the man glowering down at him. Hematite looked every inch the bruiser that he was, from his wide muscled frame, to his gorilla-like arms, to the jagged network of scars that covered half his face. It was always strange, even to his own son, to see him in anything other than a work tunic and oft-mended leggings yet there he stood in full uniform and seeming ever inch out of place.

Kunzite scrambled to his feet and would have scraped a bow had Hematite not stopped him. The old warrior threw an arm about Kunzite’s shoulders and lead him down the path back toward the castle. “I thought I’d find you at that damned pavilion, again. What were you up to?”

“Thinking. I needed some fresh air.”

Hematite’s arm tightened about Kunzite, and the man’s voice dropped to a gravely whisper, “You needed to be away from him.”

“Sir, I--”

“Don’t, boy.” Giving his son a quick, warning glance, Hematite shook his head. “I know you better than that.”

Clasping his hands behind his back, Kunzite chewed upon his bottom lip a moment before he said: “He has grown distant of late.”

“Aye.” From the corner of his eye, Kunzite saw his father’s beard bob along with his head. They were both tall, but Kunzite had not yet reached his father’s height--he doubted, at this point, that he ever would, and secretly thanked Gaea for that. There was a fine line between tall and giant, and his father had crossed it long ago. “From many he used to call friend, and brother. It’s not gone unmarked.”

A tremble ran down his spine and Kunzite was certain that Hematite had felt it, but the general said nothing. Carefully, Kunzite shrugged and valiantly ignored the frantic beating of his heart. He felt that he should say something, that his father was waiting, but his mind reeled speechless.

They turned together up the path as the castle glimpsed into view above the treetops. The garden walls would soon be in sight, and with them the courtiers surely walking amongst the flowers. Hematite slowed his step, though he did not stop, as he said, “You’re a good lad, and a fine man, and I have always been proud to have a boy who so readily accepted his duty to his king. Even if I’d had my pick of sons, I couldn’t have done any better than you.”

Kunzite’s mouth bobbed for words he did not have, then he shut his jaw. He was aware of his cheeks heating, and he ducked his head as he had not since his boyhood. His father chuckled, but did not smile.

“But I wonder, sometimes, if you understand that there is another to whom your duty comes first?”

He raised his head at that strange thought, and his eyebrows furrowed. “Sir?”

Stopping in the middle of the path, Hematite fixed his son with a serious look, and squeezed the lad’s shoulder in one hand. “Her.” The warrior nodded to the forest about them. “Our home and, more importantly, the people who live upon her. Our duty is a sacred trust that cannot be broken. Not for any reason.”

“You mean Gaea,” Keanu said softly. “Our duty to Gaea.”

“Gaea?” Jun stared up at him, one blond eyebrow lifted. The night had fallen around them, and Keanu became suddenly aware that his butt was freezing. He’d fallen asleep, he guessed from the grit in his eyes and he rubbed them clean. Yawning, Keanu shook his head to ward off any questions.

The soccer players had gone, but there were still other people walking in the park: a couple strolling in the distance, a woman standing beneath a tree across the soccer field, a pair of children sitting on a monkey bar. Staring at them.

Keanu frowned at that, and Jun nudged his shoulder. There was a slight shake to the boy, now, and his eyes kept darting to the children. Try as he might, Keanu wasn’t sure what the problem was--the kids were staring, sure, but they were too young to be really aware of newscasts or what “dangerous escapees” might look like. Neither were they running to their parents to complain of foreigners in the park.

Come to think of it, Keanu wasn’t sure where their parents were. He looked about for any adult which might be connected to the pair, but there was no one else save the...the girl under the tree had moved closer, halfway across the soccer field. She was stock-still when Keanu noticed her, and staring blankly in their direction. Whoever she was, she didn’t look old enough to be a mother to the kids, though she could just be watching them. He raised his hand to wave, and Jun grabbed his wrist.

“What?”

The boy shook his head, eyes wide and lips tight. “Yurei.”

Keanu turned back, and came face-to-face with the woman. Jun’s hand squeezed about his wrist as the woman stared into Keanu’s face. Her skin was white as snow, and her eyes rimmed with dark circles. She grinned in a slow, methodical gesture which did not reach her eyes, and the inside of her mouth was as black as pitch.

If it weren’t for Jun he might have stuck to the spot, but the boy grabbed his arm and drug him until he stumbled to his feet and ran.

They were easier to spot, now. Each of these creatures--these ‘yurei’--were deathly pale, save where their eyes and mouths were blacked out. It was as though each of them had crawled from an old film, projected onto the earth by moonlight. They ran without plan or reason, Jun leading the way through the streets with Keanu close behind. So much for staying in place, he thought, just as they turned a corner and crashed into another set of fleeing children.

Tangled up on the sidewalk, it took a moment for each of the four to pull themselves up again. Nick swore under his breath, and helped Jun back up to his feet. Zoe panted with her hands on her knees, then looked back behind her. Keanu turned as well, back the way he and Jun had come, but there was no sign of the woman people who had been there only moments before.

Jun grabbed Zoe’s arm, and the pair dissolved quickly into a shouting match. Nick tried to step between them, but they didn’t stop until Keanu put his fingers into his mouth and blew a sharp whistle.

It was so quiet they could hear a dog barking madly within someone’s house.

“What the hell is going on?”

Zoe tore her eyes from Jun’s face. “Which part first?”

“Those things. Jun was saying something like--”

“Yurei. They’re a kind of ghost. Like--not a _demon_ , but...very close.” She cast a nervous glance over her shoulder, but there was no one there.

“They were following us after we got split up,” Nick said. “I didn’t notice at first, then this guy grabbed me and...”

“My apologies. I hadn’t meant to startle you.”

They jumped and stared at the newcomer, and Keanu knew that if he hadn’t been insane before, he definitely was now. The boy talking to them had a glowing, golden horn growing out the top of his head.

Nick stepped back and put his arm out as though to shield Zoe, who gave him a sour look. “Who are you?”

“My name is Helios,” said the stranger, and he put his hand over his heart as he bowed to them. A smile touched at the corners of his lips when he righted himself, and gestured to the air beside him. “Please, come with me.”

A large oval window frame materialized in the middle of the street. No, not a window--a door. Keanu stared at the flowered field beyond it. “We don’t know you. Why would we--”

Helios had flinched, just faintly, and Keanu was stopped by an onslaught of conflicted emotions. Whoever this person was, he didn’t like hurting him--and he knew, somehow, that he just had. Jun touched his elbow, and they looked behind them to where a woman was standing a block away, beneath a lamppost. She didn’t have any feet.

“Get in the portal.”

“But--” said Nick.

“My presence won’t hold them off much longer,” Helios said with an apologetic smile.

Zoe ducked under Nick’s arm and was the first through the doorway. Jun followed suit, obviously not keen on leaving Zoe again. Keanu met Nick’s gaze for a long moment, then the other boy looked away and trudged in behind them. Nodding to Helios, Keanu was the last in before the portal closed behind them.

They stood waist deep in grass and wild flowers. The field was a familiar one, and a chill ran down Keanu’s spine.

“Where are we?”

He glanced at Jun, “I’m not sure, but--wait. You don’t speak English.”

“I’m not.” Jun glowered at him. Zoe looked perplexed, glancing between the pair of them.

“Language makes no difference here,” said Helios, appearing before them. Keanu didn’t even try to figure out where the boy had come from. He smiled as they faced him, and tipped his chin. “So long as the language is of Earth, anyway.”

“There are others?”

Turning, the boy began to walk out into the flowers. “Come. The shrine is being prepared for you.”

Zoe stood her ground, arms crossed over her chest. “Does that preparation involve any kind of virgin sacrifice? Because I might just have to pass.”

Nick thumped her shoulder as he passed. “Don’t ya worry, kiddo, this ain’t that kinda flick. Too many flowers.”

Shaking his head, Keanu stopped at Zoe’s side as Jun followed after the brunet. “He’s not going to hurt us, Zoe.”

“How do you know that?”

“...the same way I know you.”

She raised her eyes to his and studied him a moment. Then, Zoe shook her head a little and chewed on her bottom lip. “OK. If you say so.” Unsure of where the urge came from, or how he dared to be so bold, Kunzite slung his arm about her shoulders as they walked after the other three.

Like the time before, the field seemed to go on forever. The forest never got any closer, but as they passed over hill after hill, there came the rise of a tower in the distance. Finally, they came up to a crest and there, in the dip upon the other side, was the shrine. It was comprised mostly of arches and columns, with all four sides open to the wind. He knew, without having to enter, that the middle would have an open skylight as well, that the sun’s light--and the moon’s--might shine upon the crystal within.

Roses had spread all over the edifice, though his strange memory told him that these were new. There came a darkness at that thought, a deep seated disgust that those would grow here, and try as he might Keanu could not find the reason for it. Zoe made an annoyed sound and scowled at one of the blossoms as they passed.

Ahead of them, Helios glanced back at them and there was sadness in his eyes. “I hadn’t thought to see any of you again, but it seems that there are other ideas about.”

“Do you always speak in riddles?” Nick slowed to a stop at the stairs to the shrine. He gazed up into it, but seemed reluctant to go any further. Helios turned, already halfway up the steps.

“It is not my intention to confuse you, though I suppose that this must all be...rather perplexing. Please, come inside and I’ll explain.”

“Why not here?” Jun had stopped in kind with Nick, and the other two fell into place just behind them.

The boy descended the steps again, and sat near the bottom. “Very well. Please, make yourselves comfortable.”

Keanu, Zoe, and Jun found themselves seats on the ground, but Nick remained standing behind them. He leaned upon a column and plucked a rose from the vine. Petal by petal, he began to pluck it.

Zoe faced Helios squarely. “What is this place?”

“This is your home. Or it was, a very long time ago. It is called Elysion, the Golden Kingdom, and it is the cradle of all human civilization.”

Jun laughed. “That’s the Tigris-Euphrates valley.”

“The two rivers run through here, yes.” Helios nodded, and gestured to the distance. “The old palace sits near the crux of them. Of course, this is a different section than in the physical realm. I believe three of you have already been to the castle.”

The children stared at him a long moment, and even Nick stopped his plucking. Helios nodded, and pursed his lips. “I was asleep for a very long time, like the maidens of this shrine. When I woke, Elysion had been invaded by an evil sorceress known as Nehelenia. I thought that the nightmares were her doing, but--”

“An evil sorceress.” Keanu sat forward and fixed Helios with a stare. “You’re serious?”

“Ken, all respect man, but yer askin’ a guy with a horn on his head, who just saved us from a pack of angry ghosts, if he’s serious about some bitch that does magic. That ain’t the weirdest shit we’ve heard all year.”

Helios gave them both a surprised look, but Keanu nodded and sat back. “He’s right, I’m sorry.”

“As I was saying, I thought the nightmares were Nehelenia’s doing, and when she was defeated...things returned to normal for a time. The ruins were still there, of course, but I didn’t venture close enough to them on a daily basis to know that there was anything...else.”

“You mean the...” Jun frowned. “You mean the yurei.”

Helios nodded. “Yes, that’s a word for them. Though I believe the word we used to use was ‘youma.’”

Recognition shot through Keanu like a lightning bolt, and he saw Zoe startle as well. The other two merely looked resigned. Raising her hands, Zoe waved them, palms out, “Wait, wait, wait. Back up. What castle? Those were dreams!”

`“No they weren’t,” said Jun in a near whisper. “You were with me, weren’t you? When the king cast him out.”

Zoe stared at Jun, then looked to Keanu and Nick in turn. None could meet her eyes. “The castle still exists.”

“If this place does...” muttered Nick.

On the steps above them, Helios hung his head. “The castle exists, yes. As do the people who lived in it. They are the reason I brought you here.”

The sun was coming up when they agreed to retire into the shrine. Though Keanu did not like the idea of trying to sleep in this place, not when he knew the horrors that laid elsewhere in Elysion, he knew that there was less option for them in returning to the so-called ‘physical realm’.

Underneath the shrine proper, there was a network of rooms where once dozens of priests and priestesses had lived. Now there were only three: Helios, and the two shrine maidens who had survived with him. The maidens had cleaned out a room for each of them along the main corridor and left them with instructions on where to find the wash chambers.

The rooms weren’t much--barely enough space to turn around in, made of pure marble, and with nothing but a pallet and a brazier each--but they were enough. Keanu had barely laid his head down before he passed out.

It was cold and dark in the throne room, and not just from the tons of ice far over their head. Kunzite could feel the press of the spirits at his back, though he could never see them. They were tricky in that way, always lurking at the edge of one’s vision only to disappear when looked at directly. He ignored them as best he could in favour of the queen.

Beryl was still studying the orb before her, her crimson eyes locked upon its swirling depths. He was never quite sure what it was that she saw in it. Whatever it was, it seemed to satisfy her eventually for she let the crystal go and looked at him. “Lord Kunzite. What news have you?”

“I’m afraid there’s been little progress, my lady. The tunnels run far, but all the portals into Elysion proper are closed to us. We fear it didn’t survive.”

“Perhaps.” One claw traced slow circles upon the surface of the crystal as Beryl thought.

There had been a time, long distant now, when Beryl had been beautiful. A strong, vibrant woman, he’d admired her though he hadn’t liked her. These days, however...Kunzite staved off his rising annoyance before the ogress could catch a whiff of it. What had remained of Beryl in this life was a poor imitation of woman he’d known, and she seemed no closer to finding answers than any of the rest of them. “Perhaps not...”

“My lady?”

Beryl looked up again, her hand resting upon the crystal and still distracted. She wetted her lips and shook her head. “What did you need, Kunzite?”

He paused, then shook his head. “Nothing, my lady.”

“Then leave me. I am busy.”

He backed from the dais, turned, and strode out of the hall through the demons that gathered at her feet. Elysion, he thought, was not the problem here.

With no way to tell the time underground, Keanu got up as soon as he felt the need to do so. After washing himself briefly in the wash room, he went upstairs and into the crisp, morning air of Elysion. The sun was rising, it seemed, and he realized with a start that he must have slept the whole day away.

“The others are still down.”

Zoe was sitting on the steps with a breakfast on a napkin. She pointed to a small bowl of pastries someone had left near the stair door, and he retrieved a few before joining her. “I don’t think I’ve ever slept that long.”

“Me neither. I’m an insomniac, usually.”

“You didn’t use to be,” Keanu said automatically, and then winced.

Zoe frowned. She finished off the last of her breakfast, and then dusted her hands on her grubby jeans. “Jun tried to warn us in the park, about the yurei.”

“Yeah.” Unsure of what he was even eating--and, to be honest, he didn’t think he cared--Keanu swallowed one sawdust mouthful around the lump of guilt in his throat. “I figured that out, after we got chased. How long do you think he’s been seeing these things?”

“Longer than the rest of us, probably.” Zoe shifted in her seat and rubbed her hands together. “I never believed him before. I wish I had.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” Keanu choked down the last of his pastry and stood up. “Come on, I want to try something.” He was half down the stair before he heard Zoe following, but she did, and he didn’t look back. She caught up to him when they were far out into the field, and glanced nervously behind them. “We won’t get lost.”

“You sure?”

Instead of answer that, Keanu trudged onward. Another moment later and suddenly, out of no where, they had reached the forest’s edge. Zoe came to a halt and turned in circles as she stared open mouthed at the change of scenery. “How the hell--?”

“I don’t think people were allowed at the shrine,” said Keanu. “There was a--”

“Spell on it,” they finished together.

Zoe nodded. “And the castle...it’s just a little ways from here, right? Through the woods.”

Keanu glanced at the trees in question and frowned. “Well...yes, but--”

“Lets go see.” Zoe started for the trees, and Keanu jogged after her.

“Wait.” He caught her arm, gently, and shook his head. “You really don’t want to do that.”

“Why not?”

Keanu looked again to the trees, and he wasn’t sure if he imagined the faces within it or not. Zoe followed his gaze and then took his hand from her elbow. “I’ll be okay, alright? I think there’s a ledge not too far from here. We can see it. We won’t go down there. I just...I need to see.”

Finally, Keanu nodded, and they went together to a little path not too far from where they stood. It didn’t seem to be the same one that he and Nick had traveled a few days before, and Keanu was glad of that. As Zoe had predicted, they soon came across a short cliff in the hillside, which overlooked a river and, further upstream, the backside of the castle. From here they could see the garden filled with overgrown rosebushes and hedges which had long since lost their shape. At some point a tree had fallen and broken the enclosure, and now the once carefully tended flora spilled out into the forest beyond.

A collection of broken columns rested where there had once been a pavilion by the river’s edge, where the queen and king had once taken their breakfast every morning. Further down the river, in similar shape and hidden by a bend from the castle, was another such pavilion. This one had been made of marble, much like Helios’s shrine, but it had served a much different purpose.

“Kunzite,” said Zoe, her voice hardly more than a whisper. Her eyes were centered upon the castle, and she rubbed her arms against the morning chill. “Why was this place sealed to us? When Beryl--”

Her chin lifted, suddenly, and she turned widened eyes to him. “Beryl!”

“Where?” Keanu looked about them and found no one. Zoe grabbed his arm.

“No, not here. I meant to tell you, in Yamaguchi-shi Nick and I saw the news while we were walking--”

“Yes, so did we.”

“--Then you know she’s escaped?”

Frowning, Keanu shook his head. “I couldn’t understand. How?”

“I don’t know. They think she’s with me and Jun, that we broke her out or something. Which is ridiculous, I don’t even know what facility they transferred her to. She’s definitely missing, though, and I think she might be after Endymion.” Zoe paused, her eyes searching his face, and then she let him go. Taking a step back, she frowned and narrowed her eyes. “You don’t care, do you?”

Swallowing thickly, Keanu found his gaze drug back to that ancient pavilion by the river. Though he knew, deep within his soul, that there was something wrong about it, he couldn’t seem to remember what it was. The thought nagged at him, as did many things. Everything. Half understood orders and information, two--no, three--lifetimes of information twisted upon one another and never making any sense.

He turned and paced, one hand swiping through his hair. “I don’t know!”

Her eyes were accusing when he looked back at her, and a very, very bright blue. His heart lurched, and he sat heavily upon a nearby log. “Don’t look at me like that.”

A silence passed between them as Zoe fidgeted. She glowered at the ground, at the trees, at the castle down the river...then she sighed and rubbed a palm over her face. In kind, Keanu felt the anger rushing out of him, and he put his palms together before his lips. His thumbs rubbed into his sinuses as he closed his eyes and let the words come. “We could run away. We could forget all this ever happened or is happening. Why should we have to? Why is it always us who must give up everything...”

He heard her move through the grass and settle upon the log beside him, thigh to thigh. “Forgive me,” whispered Zoe. “That wasn’t fair.”

“Life ain’t fair,” said Nick. He and Jun came in off the path, each looking rested, at the least, but no less haggard or confused than they had the day before. Nick was staring at the palace. “Everyone’s dead. Family, our friends. They dinnit ask for what happened to ‘em, it just did. That fair?”

“No but--”

“The yurei.” They all turned to look at Jun, who seemed stricken as he stared into the distance. He moved closer to the edge of the cliff, then turned to look at each of them in turn. “Who knows what happened here? Who knows _exactly_?”

None of them answered; could not answer. Jun, crestfallen, looked back to the castle. “Helios said he rescued us, but not all of them mean us harm. Zoe, didn’t one help you, back at the hospital? You said it did.”

“Yeah. The other I had to kill, though. It was trapping you--”

“Here. It trapped me _here_.”

“Souls ain’t supposed to linger,” said Nick with a thoughtful hum. He frowned. “Happens, sometimes, but mostly when they’re...”

Zoe raised her eyes to Jun’s. “When a spirit is wronged before death. When they have not had proper burial, or desire revenge against a great foul against them. That is a yurei.”

Keanu threw his hands up and rose from the log. “Whoah! Wait. We’re jumping to conclusions. None of us really know what even happened. Granted, I’ve seen the--the bodies. There were no burials performed here, so maybe you have a point, but we should ask Helios first--”

“Not me.”

They looked up as Helios joined them. He offered them a sad smile and clasped his hands behind his back. “You do not remember me at all, do you?”

Keanu shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t.”

Though crestfallen, the horned boy nodded. “I’m afraid I don’t know, either. This is why I assumed it was Nehelania’s doing. At the time when all of this occurred, I was a young acolyte of Gaea--the youngest to have ever been taken into service. As you’ve remembered, the shrine is unavailable to all but certain persons--those who have given their sacred oaths to Gaea. Its spells can be weakened, as they were by several enemies past, but in that time they were strong and new. I knew nothing of the war, save the word, until my mentor bid me sleep within the crystal that I might be safe. When I awoke, it was to Nehelenia’s tampering.”

“What of Endymion?” Keanu’s fist closed and his jaw went taunt. “He lives yet. Has he done nothing?”

Helios pursed his lips. “I have not called for him, and he has not felt the trouble. I thought to, many times, but I tried first to correct the issue myself. However...”

“You know what they want.” Nick glared at the boy. “You know you can’t bring him here, to that.”

The boy bowed his head. “When I realized that you four were reborn, that they were already calling to you...I hoped that you could get them to listen to reason.”

“And what is reason?” Keanu tipped his head to one side. “What would you have us say: that they died for a just cause? That their anger is irrational? That they should allow Endymion back to the land he left forsaken?”

“You don’t know what those words mean,” said Helios, though he lacked all appropriate venom.

“And you don’t know why they exist any more than we do. Less.”

To that the boy said nothing, and after waiting several minutes, Keanu shook his head and turned. “There is one who may know. And I think I know where she is.”

“Kunzite--” started Zoe.

“We have to.” He met Jun’s eye, and the boy simply lifted his chin. “I’m sorry, but we have to know the truth. We have to know our duty.”

They found a small fishing boat which was still in tack and used that to follow the river along its course. For most of the day, the four took turns rowing as they rekindled their memories of a nearly forgotten childhood. There was the field where Zoicite had gotten his arm split open on a rock, which had left a scar for the rest of his days. There was the mudpatch where they’d fished bugs up with sticks. There was their favorite swimming hole, somehow with a twine rope still attached to an overhanging bough. Everywhere they looked was a memory, and also a sadness, for even the banks were not without corpses.

Faint glimpses of pale faces followed them along the river, though in the daylight they were hard to see. Once, Keanu thought he saw a large, scarred man standing beneath a tree and waving to them. He nearly waved back before the image disappeared.

It was toward the end of the day that they found the cave the river exited to. He heard, like a whisper of wind through the trees, a long forgotten voice telling him that the entrance was blocked. In another moment they had passed through it and into the pitch black darkness of the cave, without the slightest hesitation or problem.

“I thought...didn’t we have a hard time, before..?” Zoe looked behind them as, once again, the darkness seemed to recede from around them. Keanu figured he was doing his glow-bug impersonation again and felt his cheeks heat.

“Something was keeping us out,” he said. “Beryl was livid. It was then that she turned her thoughts to...some kind of crystal.”

“The Ginzushou.” Jun leaned against his oar. “It was the Ginzushou.”

Nick snorted. “And Endymion.”

They all shuddered, and Keanu turned his thoughts toward where the river was going. The water was beginning to pick up pace as they got further into the cavern and the chasm narrowed. Docking probably would be a good idea, but when Keanu turned to do so he realized he had no idea how.

“Pretty soon we’re going to hit that glacier,” said Nick.

“No, the river will ice over before that.”

Zoe gripped the side of the boat as it careened through the water. “And that’s a good thing?”

“Not really. Not at this speed.” Keany stumbled, then grabbed the help as the boat narrowly missed some rocks. He hadn’t really thought of that and the water was sloshing white around them.

“There's no earthly way of knowing which direction we are going,” Nick chanted over the water’s rumble, “There's no knowing where we're rowing or which way the river's flowing...”

“Not helping!” Zoe loosened her hand just long enough to hit him.

“Nick!” Keanu turned to the boy as he grabbed Zoe’s arm to keep her from flying off the back of the boat.

“I get it, not helping!”

Keanu grabbed an oar to push them away from another boulder. “Not that. We need to not be here.”

“What?”

Jun grabbed up the other oar and followed suit. He didn’t know if any of them had ever been white water rafting before, but he was sure he wouldn’t want to ever again. The worst part was not being able to see more than a few feet ahead of them. Nick pulled Zoe back up against him, and the pair clung to one another. “Like the car!”

“I’ve never done that intentionally.”

“Try!”

A great roar was building ahead of them and Keanu’s stomach bottomed out. Something told him that there weren’t any waterfalls on this river--they certainly hadn’t seen one before--and that whatever was making that sound, they didn’t want to know about it. “Nick!”

“I’M TRYING!”

Water sloshed up into the boat, knocking them all flat into the back of it. The noise was growing louder, and louder...

The boat skidded to a halt as a blast of frigid air chilled them instantly to the bone. They tumbled, end over end, into the snow and ice. Keanu pulled himself to his feet with a groan, and every inch of him was shaking. All around them the world was solid white, frozen and cold.

He looked about until he saw a frosted orange shirt peeking out of a snowbank, then hobbled over and dug Jun out of the mess. Together, the two boys found the boat upended not too far away. Nick and Zoe crawled out from underneath it, showing absolutely no sign of the cold.

“Your lips are blue,” said Zoe. She reached out and touched Keanu, and suddenly he was warm. He stared at her a moment, as her eyes widened in kind. “It’s a shield. I have a shield.”

Jun was staring off into the distance, and when Keanu looked, he had no idea what it was that boy thought so interesting. They’d seen that look before. “Ok,” he said. “Jun in the front, hold hands with Zoe, and the rest of will follow.”

Zoe nodded and grabbed Jun’s hand, who started. He babbled something in Japanese, and Nick groaned. “Not this again.”

“Yes, this,” said Keanu. He took Zoe’s other hand as she relayed his instructions to Jun. The blond boy seemed to understand what he meant, for he nodded and started off immediately. Keanu grabbed Nick’s hand before the boy turned blue, and they moved forward in a line.

They had to be in Antartica, he figured, and there was something surreal about being able to walk on top of the snowdrifts that covered the ice. Deep in the back of his mind he knew that this had something to do with Zoe--if she weren’t there, if her power weren’t extending to cover the whole of them, they’d have been dead of exposure by now. More and more these sudden gaps in his knowledge bothered him, like a wound at the top of his mouth he couldn’t stop picking at.

Jun didn’t falter, though. Whatever trail it was that he followed, he did so like a bloodhound after a fox. It wasn’t long before they found a single, dark hole upon the otherwise barren landscape. Like every other strange thing in his life, this was as familiar and right to him as breathing was to everyone else. Of course, there was a cavern beneath the ice. Of course, it connected with the glacier he and Nick had found days earlier. Of course, Jun knew exactly where it was, and, when they descended into it, they knew that they would not get lost within the caves.

They knew because, he realized with a start, they had done this before.

As they marched on through the darkness, whispers and giggles began to surround them. The yurei’s presence lifted the hair on his arms and neck, and he tried to ignore them. Only Jun seemed relatively unaffected by it; he kept his eyes forward and lead their way with every air of confidence. Perhaps, Keanu thought, it was the yurei Jun had followed in the first place.

Finally, there came a light ahead of them, faint and purple but real. Each slowed to a halt before they reached it, and they looked to each other. This was their last chance to turn back, he knew. Their last moment to run and try and forget that any of this had ever happened.

“It won’t change anything,” he said softly. “Running away. It won’t change anything.”

“We have to finish it,” Nick agreed, taking a step forward.

Jun nodded. “I’m tired of being lost.”

Zoe hesitated behind them, and she looked first to Jun, and then to Keanu. “I don’t...” Pursing her lips, the girl licked them. “You’re right,” she said eventually, “I just wish you weren’t.”

That said, she fell into step beside them. Together, the four marched forth into the queen’s audience chamber.

The girl upon the throne did not closely resemble the woman he’d known, though she’d tried. Bachiko’s hair was fried from chemicals and red as a crayon. Over her thin, curve-less body she wore nothing more than a dirty, long purple t-shirt with Mickey Mouse on the front. Her legs were covered in bruises and scratches, and she hadn’t clipped her fingernails in months, maybe years.

When they entered, she looked up and giggled. In her lap was a crystal ball, the exact replica of the one she’d always had before, and it swirled with a faint purple glow of her power. “I knew you’d come back,” she cooed, “My boys. My generals.”

If her eyes stayed a little longer upon Jun, he did not seem bothered, but for the faintest tremble in his chin. “Maybe,” said Keanu, “Maybe not. We’ve only come for answers, Beryl.”

At her old name, the girl twitched. Her eyes focused a little more than they had been, and she turned her attention to him. “Kunzite. Yes, you are Kunzite, aren’t you? The noble, pompous Kunzite. Come to take my throne, have you?”

His eyes narrowed. “I told you, we’ve come for answers. I have no interest in your throne.”

“It’s mine!” In a moment the girls’ face had transformed to that of a demon’s: fanged and wild, and filled with rage. “You can’t have it! I worked too long, too hard...”

As soon as the moment had come, it vanished. The girl settled back, a girl again, and sniffed. “He left me all alone, Kunzite, what was I supposed to do?”

Keanu took a step forward. Jun caught his elbow, but Keanu shook his head and the boy let him go. Kneeling before the throne, close enough that he might touch her knee were he to want to, Keanu looked up at the woman. “I stayed by your side, did I not, my Queen?”

“You were always loyal,” she mused.

“And I am still, to the rightful heir.”

Her eyes narrowed. Tapping her nails against the crystal ball, Beryl looked him over. Her eyes--dark, now, though he thought he caught a flash of crimson--darted to the other generals in turn, and then back to him. Wordlessly, she picked up her crystal and held it aloft. It began to glow.

A thousand men, a thousand swords, thousands of sets of armour, catapults and steeds, and supply chains, command tents and battle plans, maps--these were the instruments of war, which he had been trained to use from birth. Armies would meet in fields and find their answers in sweat and blood, where politics had failed.

War was never pretty, but this was not war.

Kunzite stood upon what had been a battlefield and gazed across yard after yard, mile after mile, of twisted, mutilated dead. No natural fire could have wasted so many at once; no natural lightning clipped at the heels of soldiers and blew them from where they stood. The army which had faced them had had been but a fraction of their numbers, and yet it was their silver banner which fluttered now upon its post.

His vision swam, and he stood in these very caves, facing down five young girls in uniforms. A rage filled him as he knew what they had done, what he had at stake to lose if they beat him, but he was weak. He had fought so long, and he was so very, very tired.

Another scene, another danger, another mistake. Two lives flooded within his mind at once, each like a punch to the gut. The world seemed to spin beneath his feet and he felt himself falling, falling, falling...

At last, his mind settled upon columns in a dull grey light, and a foreign palace stretched before him. He marched along the corridor, ignoring the shouts and clamour of battle from without. Ahead of him was the end of this, and he knew what he must do.

She stood upon the steps, her eyes focused not on him but the men and women locked in battle. Her silver hair flowed behind her, mingling with her dress and the white touches of her power. From her breast sprang forth a large, plain crystal.

Kunzite drew his sword and raced for the steps. Darkness jumped between them, and a blade blocked his own. Endymion met his eyes over their swords, and Kunzite knew as well as he knew his own soul that the prince’s choice had been his own.


	9. For Whom The Bell Tolls

**EPILOGUE** **  
**  
When each of them woke, it was with a clarity they hadn’t felt in years--if ever. They helped one another to their feet and stood before the false queen’s throne. Beryl glowered as Keanu held his hand out before him. There came a familiar burn beneath his skin, like an itch, yet this time it was somehow soothing. A light welled forth in his hand. It burst from him, and the throne crumbled to dust. The girl fell upon her bum and sat there, holding her orb to her chest as she sobbed.

Ignoring her, Keanu looked down at himself, then to his three companions. Their uniforms had returned: the white suits, the golden piping, the russet cloaks. He was relieved to find his sword and scabbard at his hip, as though they had never gone. Though they did not quite look as they had, there were some things they knew they could not afford to forget.

All around them, packed into every inch of the cavern, stood yurei. Men, women, children...they looked with expectant eyes to the generals of their kingdom--to the four kings whom held the power to right the wrongs done to them.

Jadeite said, “There’s a monster on the moon.”

“No,” said Kunzite, and the spirits bowed before them. “There’s a monster on the Earth.”


End file.
